• 


LIBRARY 

UNIVtRSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO       * 


X 


THE  HILLS  OF  HOME 


BKRT   LOUIS    STEVKNSON 


THE  HILLS  OF 

HOME 

BY  L.  MACLEAN  WATT 

WITH   THE   PENTLAND   ESSAYS   OF 

ROBERT  LOUIS 
STEVENSON 

AN  OLD  SCOTCH  GARDENER 
THE  MANSE:  A  PASTORAL 
AND  THE  PENTLAND  RISING 

TWELVE  ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  COLOUR 

BY    ROBERT    HOPE,   A.R.S.A. 


NEW  YORK: 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1914 


Turnbull  &>  Spears,  Printers,  Edinburgh,  Great  Britain 


LIST  OF  CONTENTS 

THE  HILLS  OF  HOME 

CHAPTER  ONE page  1 5 

CHAPTER  TWO 29 

CHAPTER  THREE 41 

CHAPTER  FOUR 49 

CHAPTER  FIVE 59 

CHAPTER  SIX 87 

CHAPTER  SEVEN IOI 

CHAPTER  EIGHT 1 1 5 

CHAPTER  NINE 133 

t 

PENTLAND  ESSAYS 

I.  A  PASTORAL 147 

II.  AN  OLD  SCOTCH  GARDENER  .          .          .167 

III.  THE  MANSE 185 

IV.  THE  PENTLAND  RISING           ....  203 

I.  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLT   .             .            .  207 

II.  THE  BEGINNING    .            .            .            .            .  ^  21$ 

III.  THE  MARCH  OF  THE  REBELS    .             .            .  223 

IV.  RULLION  GREEN                 ....  235 

V.  A  RECORD  OF  BLOOD        ....  245 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

From  pictures  by 
ROBERT  HOPE,  A.R.S.A. 

ROBERT  Louis  STEVENSON       .        .         frontispiece 

SWANSTON  COTTAGE        .       .  .      pa%e  16 

"When  years  have  come  it  casts  a  more 
endearing  light  upon  the  past." 

SWANSTON  VILLAGE— SPRING        ...       32 

"  Each  new  impression  only  deepens  the 
sense  of  nationality  and  the  desire  of  native 
places." 

FROM  ABOVE  SWANSTON  COTTAGE  ...       64 
"The  sea-beholding  city  in  the  plain." 

WINTER  ON  THE  PENTLANDS  ....       96 

"A  bitter  air  that  took  you  by  the  throat, 
unearthly  harpings  of  the  wind  along  the 
moors." 

THATCHED  COTTAGE— SWANSTON  VILLAGE  .      128 

"  I  think  I  owe  my  taste  for  that  hill  busi- 
ness rather  to  the  art  and  interest  of  John 
Tod." 

JOHN  TOD 152 

"  Had  been  all  his  days  faithful  to  that 
curlew-scattering,  sheep-collecting  life." 

THE  GARDEN— SWANSTON  COTTAGE      .       .      168 

"In  flowers  his  taste  was  old-fashioned 
and  catholic." 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  MANSE      .  ...     page  184 

"A  certain  water-door,  embosomed  in 
shrubbery." 

COLINTON — OLD  MILL 200 

"The  river  is  there  dammed  back  for  the 
service  of  the  old  flour-mill." 

RULLION  GREEN 216 

"On  the  summit  of  the  bare  heathery  spur 
of  the  Pentlands." 

THE  PENTLANDS,  NEAR  RULLION  GREEN      .      248 
"In  sooth  that  scene  was  fair." 


NOTE 

THE  Three  Essays,  "Pastoral,"  "An  Old 
Scotch  Gardener,"  and  "The  Manse," 
contained  in  this  volume,  are  reprinted 
by  arrangement  with  Messrs  Chatto  & 
Windus,  Ltd. 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 
BY    L.    MACLEAN    WATT 

CHAPTER  ONE 

IT  IS  A  THING  WHICH  CAN- 
not  be  understood  by  the  dwellers 
in  fertile  plains — how  hearts  should 
ever  learn  to  cling  with  love  to  the 
remembrance  of  frowning  mountains,  bare 
grey  crags,  and  stormy  headlands  beaten 
about  by  the  wind,  and  the  rain,  and  the 
tumbling  surf  of  the  sea.  Yet,  that  the 
thought  of  these  does  possess  and  domin- 
ate the  lives  of  certain  peoples  with  an 
abiding  passion  is  testified  alike  by  history 
and  by  literature. 

All  mountain  folks  have  been  patriots, 
because  the  mountains  have  been,  in  every 
age,  the  haven,  the  fortress,  and  bulwark 
of  liberty.  The  very  ruggedness  of  a  land 
was  an  asset  of  its  national  independence. 
Hence  the  love  men  bear  for  their  Father- 
land is  naturally  intensified  in  those  last  re- 
treats of  most  precious  human  interests. 
Indeed,  battle  for  anything  enhances  its 
15 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

value  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  have  to  strug- 
gle for  the  possession  of  it  This  undoubt- 
edly very  largely  explains  thetenderpride 
which  the  Swiss  and  the  Scots  feel  fortheir 
native  mountains.  The  ranks  of  invading 
enemies  have  been  rolled  back  down  their 
slopes  like  spent  waves.  They  vindicated 
their  right  to  them  in  the  blood  of  their 
race. 

"Scotia,  my  dear,  my  native  soil" — that 
expresses  the  personal  possession-right  of 
a  man  to  the  land  of  his  birth  and  upbring- 
ing, the  prime  result  of  his  grapple  for  lib- 
erty. Retention,  in  spite  of  assault  and 
violence,  made  each  glen  and  hill,  each 
hamlet  and  graveyard,  very  deeply  prec- 
ious. Yet,  up  to  modern  times,  the  hills  were 
largely  set  about  with  fear  and  awe.  I  n  fact, 
in  medieval  and  later  Scotland  a  ridge,  a 
ravine  or  a  rushing  stream  was  the  border- 
limit  of  the  possession  of  a  clan,  to  cross 
which  was  to  venture  upon  opposition, 
wrangle,  and  the  risk  of  death.  The  advent 

16 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

of  peaceful  days,  and  the  passing  of  ancient 
habits  of  language  and  life  awoke,  devel- 
oped, and  deepened  the  spirit  of  romance. 
The  genius  and  patriotism  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott  especially  gave  voice  and  meaning  to 
this.  Fading  things  were  clothed  with  the 
glamour  which  dying  gives  to  them,  and 
men  began  to  move  lovingly  amongst  the 
glens,and  dream  beside  meanderingburns. 
The  crumbling  ruin  on  the  crag  became  a 
centre  of  poetic  thought;  the  selfishness, 
oppression,  cruelty,  murder,  and  lust 
which  had  disgraced  it  being  forgotten. 

Scotland  can,  from  the  very  variety  of 
her  configuration  and  character,  very  freely 
meet  the  patriotic  wants  of  all  her  varied 
people;  for  her  landscape  ranges  from  plain 
to  crag,  from  silent  moor  to  sobbing  sea, 
fromdesolate  upland  to  sunny  harvest-field 
and  placid  lake.  It  is  Fatherland!  And  that 
is  a  spell  which  has  quickened  tears  even 
in  strong  men's  hearts.  I  have  known  a 
handful  of  white  sand,  from  the  shore  of  a 
17  B 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

Highland  loch  four  thousand  miles  away, 
treasured  through  three  generations,  from 
the  morninglongago  when  the  exiles  turn- 
ed to  take  a  final  look  at  the  lone  waters 
that  they  loved.  Years  ago,  an  old  High- 
lander, speaking  to  me,  expressed  in  epi- 
gram this  secret  of  Scotland  and  the  Scot- 
tish nature,  when  he  told  me  that  what 
clasped  his  long  life  in  a  sweet  complete- 
ness were  his  faith  in  God,  and  his  being 
still  in  the  place  where  he  had  been  born. 
Religion  and  patriotism  are  undoubtedly 
the  cords  that  bind  us  as  a  people.  The 
nation  that  has  within  it  thelove  ofcountry 
and  the  love  of  God  has  the  indomitable 
note  of  true  and  lasting  life.  This  set  at 
the  back  of  all  our  strife  the  key  of  abiding 
victory.  Men  of  our  race  were  content  to 
toil  in  windy  fields,  fighting,  baffled  often, 
onreluctanthillsides,coaxingcorn-patches 
out  of  rugged  moors,  because  they  loved 
their  land,  and  because  they  believed  that 
God  remembershonest  labour  and  re  wards 

18 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

the  struggle  of  true  hearts.  This  is  the  fact 
behind  that  remembrance  of  native  land 
which  haunts  the  exile  from  the  fields  of 
home.  He  may  forget.  Softly  as  the  silting 
sandthat  blows  in  from  the  desert,  the  dust 
of  the  years  may  settle  between  his  heart 
and  the  home  afar.  But,  ere  he  lies  down 
to  die,  some  voice,  like  the  sound  of  a  bell 
borne  through  the  dark  to  a  ship  at  sea, 
some  verse  of  an  old  song  his  mother  sang, 
will  wake  memory  from  her  sleep.  He  will 
see  again  the  old  land  of  home — he  will 
hear  again  the  cry  of  the  wind  among  the 
crags,  and  the  voices  of  his  own  people  call- 
ing'to  him,  Come  home  to  your  own  folks 
before  you  die!  For  a  man  cannot  escape 
his  race.  A  man  cannot  hush  the  call  of  the 
blood  though  he  heaphimself  around  with 
comforts,though  he  win  whatever  the  world 
can  give  him,  though  he  bar  the  door  ofhis 
heart  againstthe  dreams  thatvisit  him.  Old 
memories  draw  the  curtain.  He  sees  again 
grey  peaks  against  the  sky,  the  scattered 
19 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

hamlet  clinging  above  the  shingly  bay; 
and  the  salt  spray  of  Hebridean  seas  is 
blown  among  his  hair.  There  never  was  a 
true  manyetbutfelt  this  to  be  true.remem- 
bering  his  lost  youth,  down  behind  the 
years. 

Now,  through  almost  all  the  thoughts 
and  words  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
these  truths  run  like  an  undertone.  The 
story  of  his  country's  struggle  for  freedom 
and  for  faith  impressed  his  heart  deeply. 
Cosmopolitan  though  he  became, he  loved 
most  of  all  the  city  of  his  birth,  and  though 
he  loved  all  high  places,  yet  most  deeply 
spoke  to  him  the  environing  hills  of  his 
childhood,  "the  hills  of  home,"  the  wind 
among  the  trees  on  their  lonely  slopes,  the 
voice  of  running  waters  in  their  wood- 
lands, the  song  of  blackbirds  and  the 
rapture  of  the  larks. 

The  Pentland  Hills,  so  accessible  from 
the  Edinburgh  pavements,  yet  intimately 
knownto  comparatively  fewofhercitizens, 

20 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

appealed  to  Stevenson  by  their  quiet,  by 
their  pensive  dignity,  by  their  historic 
and  poetic  associations,  by  their  influence 
on  the  lives  of  those  whose  acquaintance 
he  made  when  he  went  to  live  beneath  the 
shadow  of  Kirk  Yetton,  by  the  variety  in 
the  sunshine  and  cloud  of  their  day-time, 
and  by  the  spell  of  the  thought  of  their 
loneliness  in  the  night,  vocal  with  the 
ghostly  cry  of  restless  wind  and  falling 
water. 

These  feelings  he  expressed  most 
charmingly  in  the  verses,  the  second  of 
which  appeared  in  the  dedication  of  his 
Dr  Jekyll  and  Mr  Hyde: 

Bells  upon  the  city  are  ringing  in  the  night; 
High  above  the  gardens  are  the  houses  full  of  light; 
On  the  heathy  Pentlands  is  the  curlew  flying  free; 
And  the  broom  is  blowing  bonnie  in  the  north 
countrie. 

We  cannae  break  the  bonds  that  God  decreed  to  bind, 
Still  we'll  be  the  children  of  the  heather  and  the  wind; 
Far  away  from  home,  O,  it's  still  for  you  and  me 
That  the  broom  is  blowing  bonnie  in  the  north 
countrie! 

21 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

At  the  foot  of  the  craggy  face  of  Kirk 
Yetton  shelters  the  little  village  of  Swan- 
ston,  a  clachan  "in  the  woody  fold  of  a 
green  hill,"  with  some  thatched  cottages 
near  by.  Beside  the  burn,  encircled  by 
sweet  trees,  is  Swanston  Cottage,  forever 
associated  with  the  remembrance  of  the 
delicate  youth  whose  creative  genius  has 
written  his  name  amongst  the  Scottish 
immortals,  and  at  the  same  time  has  given 
him  a  grip  on  the  affections  of  the  world. 
The  view  from  Kirk  Yetton  was  very 
precious  to  him;  and  somewhere  in  the 
hollow  of  those  hills  Allan  Ramsay  set  the 
ideal  scene  of  his  Gentle  Shepherd,  though 
more  than  one  site  has  contended  for  the 
honour  of  being  the  poet's  Habbies  Howe. 
The  vicinity  of  Carlops  makes  the  strong- 
est claim, and  thepoet's  genius  has  created 
and  coloured  the  geography  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood, scattering  it  with  "Patie's  Hill" 
and  "Patie's  Mill,"  "Peggy's  Lea"  and 
"Jenny's  Brae,"  &c. 

22 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

These  Pentland  "hills  of  home,"  so  dear 
to  Stevenson,  are  thus  the  real  source  of 
that  interest  in  the  lonely  places  and  the 
lives  remote  in  pastoral  glens  of  Scotland 
which  reached  its  climax  in  Sir  Walter 
Scotland  through  him  became  an  integral 
part  of  Scottish  thought.  The  pastoral 
landscape  appealed  to  Ramsay.  He  did 
not  incorporate  in  his  picture  anything  of 
the  sublime  majesty  of  frowning  precipice 
and  misty  corrie.  His  time  was  not  yet 
ready  for  the  appreciation  of  such  things. 
But  it  had — almost  without  knowing  it 
till  Ramsay  made  it  feel  how  wearisome  it 
had  become — grown  tired  of  the  garden 
convention  which  had  come  down  as  a  bit 
of  the  poetic  stage  scenery  from  the  older 
poets;  and  men,  especially  the  jaded  town 
folks,  were  glad  to  be  led  out  into  the 
green  glades  and  sunny  moorlands  so 
near,  yet  for  so  long  remote  from  their 
acquaintance.  Besides  giving  an  impetus 
to  the  literary  expression  of  the  charm  of 
23 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

"the  hills  of  home,"  Ramsay's  work,  in 
moving  David  Allan,  in  1788,  to  depict 
the  scenes  of  The  Gentle  Shepherd,  awak- 
ened an  art  interest  in  native  landscapes. 
Montgomerie,  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
had  noted  the  charm  of  banks  and  braes, 
with  the  multitudinous  life  of  undisturbed 
places;  and  very  striking  had  been  his 
pioneer  view  of  wild  Nature,  especially  in 
the  rocky  scaur,  the  rushing  cascade,  and 
the  singing  stream.  But  his  was  a  picture 
of  loneliness — Nature  in  solitude,  except 
for  the  poet's  responsive  heart: 

As  I  mused  mine  alane, 
I  saw  ane  river  rin 

Out  oure  ane  craggy  rock  of  stane, 
Syne  lighted  in  ane  lin, 
With  tumbling  and  rumbling 
Among  the  rockis  round, 
Bewailing  and  falling 
Into  that  pit  profound. 

To  hear  thae  startling  stremis  clear, 
Methought  it  music  to  the  ear. 

In  Ramsay,  however,  the  gentler  moods 

24 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

of  the  Pentlands,  the  purling  stream  sing- 
ing its  song  of  Nature's  childhood,  the 
waterfall,  the  greensward,  the  folds  of 
sheep,  are  viewed  as  the  setting  of  innoc- 
ent pastoral  life,  and  as  things  to  be  lov- 
ingly brought  into  intimate  friendliest 
touch  with  human  loves  and  aspirations 
of  e very-day  existence  and  labour,  the  ele- 
ments and  ingredients  of  primary  poesy. 
He  sees  these  things  with  a  clean  eye. 

Gae  farer  up  the  burn  to  Habbie's  How, 

Where  a'  the  sweets  of  spring  and  summer  grow; 

Between  twa  birks,  out  o'er  a  little  lin, 

The  water  fa's  and  makes  a  singin'  din; 

A  pool  breast-deep  beneath  as  clear  as  glass, 

Kisses  with  easy  whirls  the  bord'ring  grass. 

This  was,  of  course,  the  fullest  possible 
extent  of  acquaintance  with  such  scenes 
that  thedebonair  townsmancouldachieve. 
He  was  too  corpulent,  besides,  to  win  ac- 
cess into  the  wilder  solitudes,  amid  the 
mist-haunted  grimnesses  of  frowning 
mountain  recesses. 
25 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

Burns  truly  touched  the  characteristics  of 
Ramsay's  limitations  when  he  wrote — 

In  gowany  glens  thy  burnie  strays 
Where  bonnie  lasses  bleach  their  claes; 
Or  trots  by  hazelly  shaws  and  braes 

Wi'  hawthorns  grey, 
Where  blackbirds  join  the  shepherd  lays 

At  close  o'  day. 

The  influence  of  the  Pentlands  in  liter- 
ature is  therefore  a  recordable  fact. 

There  are  other  interests  besides  Ram- 
say's. The  little  village  of  Wester  How- 
gate,  in  touch  with  the  range,  has  an  affec- 
tionate place  in  human  memory  through 
the  exquisitely  written  tale,  by  Doctor 
John  Brown,  of  Rab  and  His  Friends. 
Every  year,  too,  the  anniversary  of  Rullion 
Green  is  celebrated  by  an  open-air  ser- 
vice, where  thousands  of  people  meet  in 
huge  conventicle.  The  old  names  them- 
selves have  still  an  appeal  within  them. 
Windy  Gowl,  Cauldstane  Slap  —  their 
very  sound  has  an  eerie  sough. 

The  hills  are  intersected  by  drove  roads, 

26 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

now  long  since  forsaken  by  the  great  flocks 
of  sheep  creeping  on  wards  to  the  Southern 
markets.  Many  an  adventure  occurred  up- 
on these  in  the  old  droving  days;  robbery 
and  murder  sometimes  invaded  the  quiet 
places.  Gypsies,  shepherds,  and  lonely 
men  have  had  their  adventures,  unrecord- 
ed, deep  in  the  quiet  heart  of  those  green 
hills.  Judgment  Day  will  see  some  strange 
uprisings  there. 

It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  this  youth 
with  the  literary  hunger  in  his  heart,  with 
eye  and  ear  keenly  open  to  the  beauties 
of  Nature  and  the  experiences  of  men, 
should  find  much  to  interest  and  enthral 
him  in  such  an  environment.  The  natural 
exit  for  his  thought  in  this  connection  was 
the  Essay,  and  he  used  that  form  of  utter- 
ance as  a  medium  of  word  painting  and 
portraiture,  whereby  the  landscape  of  his 
childhood  and  his  young  manhood  became 
re-peopled  with  the  old  minister,  the  old 
gardener,  and  the  old  shepherd,  and  with 
27 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

memories    of   the    persecuted    hill-folk, 
marching  through  the  mist  and  the  driv- 
ing hail  to  death  for  the  faith 
of  their  fathers. 


CHAPTER  TWO 

•  ^HE  MODERN  ESSAY, 
as  a  form  of  composition, 
sprang  out  of  the  Charact- 
JBL^  er  Sketch.  The  Character 
Sketch  was  too  objective  to  meet  the  desire 
of  expressing  personal  opinions,  and  it  did 
not  provide  for  desultory  comment  on  af- 
fairs in  general.  Men  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury were  entering  into  thehabit  of  jotting 
down  their  opinions.  A  habit  of  keeping 
Common-place  Books,  wherein  a  man's 
thoughts  became  methodically  arranged, 
led  to  the  customof  thinking  on  paper;and 
these  things  werecirculatedamongfriends. 
The  name  Essay  was  taken  from  Mon- 
taigne to  cover  the  product.  That  word 
sufficiently  expressed  what  the  thing  was 
meant  for,  namely,  an  informal  attempt  to- 
wards the  utterance  of  thought.  Itwas  con- 
sidered to  be  anavenue  of  personal  opinion. 
In  its  pages  the  thinker  spoke  in  the  first 
person.  It  was  even  the  convention  to  look 
29 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

upon  them  as  having  been  put  together  for 
the  author's  private  use.  Lord  Bacon,  by 
the  publication  of  hisEssays  in  1 597, estab- 
lished a  model,  for  the  English  essayist, 
which  has  not  been  transcended.  The  Es- 
say remained  for  a  while  as  a  vehicle  of 
worldly  wisdom — a  select  gathering  of 
notes  and  maxims;  and  gradually  worked 
its  way  into  recognition  as  an  established 
branch  of  literature.  Bacon  set  the  mark  of 
its  style  as  an  instrument  of  concise  phrase 
and  refined  and  polished  thought,  which 
he  uses  as  the  envelope  of  quotations  and 
illustrations  drawn  from  his  own  wide  and 
varied  reading  in  the  Scriptures,  in  the 
classics,  in  Machiavelli  and  Montaigne; 
while  all  science,  as  known  in  his  time,  is 
utilized  to  elucidate  his  views  on  life.  He 
looked  upon  his  Essay  sm  the  light  of  their 
title,  namely,  as  things  which  were  not 
meant  to  be  anything  else  but  the  passing 
expression  of  opinions,  the  spontaneous 
utterance  of  his  own  beliefs  and  thoughts. 

30 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

The  Essay  method  was  applied  by  Fell- 
tham,  "a  kind  of  Bacon  in  holy  orders,"  to 
religious  topics.  Its  utility  was  widely  re- 
cognized, and  it  became  an  established 
medium  of  literary  expression,  evoking  in 
modern  times  the  most  interesting  utter- 
ance of  men's  most  intimate  thought.  From 
its  nature,  therefore,  it  admittedofasmuch 
variety  in  utterance  and  point  of  view  as 
there  was  human  character  behind  the 
making  of  it.  It  may  "perhaps  be  styled 
the  sonnet  of  prose  writing. .  .  Brevity  be- 
ing its  mark,  it  may  be  a  vehicle  of  gentle 
humour,  clean  and  polished  wit,  tabloided 
thought,  and  pregnant  suggestion."*  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  Dryden,  and  Cowley 
used  it  with  a  masterly  power.  It  was  the 
genius  of  Addison  and  Steele,  however, 
that,  in  The  Spectator,  fixed  the  Essay  as 
a  popular  English  literary  form.  A  vast 
impetus  was  given  to  its  cultivation,  and 
Johnson's  Rambler  and  Idler,  along  with 

*  Literature  and  Life,  by  L.  Mac  Lean  Watt. 
31 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

Goldsmith's  Bee  and  Citizen  of  the  World, 
bridged  the  gulf  between  the  opalesques 
of  Addison  and  Steele  and  the  poignant 
humanity  of  Elia.  Alexander  Smith,  the 
almost  forgotten  author  of  A  Life  Drama, 
presented,  in  his  Dreamthorp,  his  thoughts 
upon  literature  and  life,  in  the  form  of  care- 
fully polished  and  refined  essay,  using  it 
as  a  vehicle  of  passing  emotional  impres- 
sions of  humanity,  manners,  and  emotions, 
characters  and  customs.  In  the  hands  of 
Macaulay,  Arnold,  and  Carlyle  it  became 
a  mediumof  criticism,  expressing  theauth- 
or's  views  on  the  principles  of  Art,  and 
Literature,  in  fact  almost  the  pamphlet  of 
a  reviewer. 

Of  modern  men  none  have  come  nearer 
to  the  earlier  masterpieces  in  the  art  of  the 
Essay  than  Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  His 
essays  were  extremely  personal,  and,  in 
this  respect,  indeed,  excelled  their  kind, 
while  they  displayed  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  all  that  had  gone  before  in  the 

32 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

hands  of  the  master-craftsmen.  He  knows 
the  dialect  of  his  trade,  yet  his  own  accent 
and  his  own  point  of  view  lift  him  above 
the  imputationof  plagiarism  and  imitation. 

H  is  methods  of  work  followed  his  ideals 
of  writing.  A  good  thing  has  to  grow  slow- 
ly. It  cannot  be  pushed. 

"Do  you  imagine,"  he  says,  in  protest, 
to  a  kindly  correspondent,  "that  I  could 
write  an  essay  a  month,  or  promise  an 
essay  even  every  three  months?  .  .  .  The 
essays  must  fall  from  me,  essay  by  essay, 
as  they  ripen."  They  were  to  be  the  full 
fruitage  of  his  soul,  not  the  trivial  expres- 
sion of  a  passing  moment. 

Yet  Stevenson's  notion  of  what  an  essay 
was,  expressed  in  his  own  words,  did  not 
rise  quite  so  high  as  that,  but  as  being 
contributions  towards  "a  friendlier  and 
more  thoughtful  way  of  looking  about  one. 
.  .  .  You  know  my  own  description  of  my- 
self as  a  person  with  a  poetic  character 
and  no  poetic  talent:  just  as  my  prose 

33  c 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

muse  has  all  the  ways  of  a  poetic  one,  and 
I  must  take  my  Essays  as  they  come  to 
me." 

His  psychological  insight,  unique  in  its 
depths  of  piercing  and  passionate  vision, 
was  an  early  possession  of  his  own.  As 
when,  a  mere  child,  he  said  to  his  mother, 
"Mamma,  I  have  drawed  a  man.  Shall  I 
draw  his  soul  now?"  His  sympathy,  too, 
could  speak  with  a  touch  that  arrested  the 
breath  in  one's  throat,  as  when  he  tells 
how,  in  one  of  his  nights  of  early  ill-health, 
his  mother  lifted  him  up  out  of  bed,  and 
showed  him  two  or  three  windows  still  lit- 
up  in  Queen  Street,  "where  also,  we  told 
each  other,  there  might  be  sick  little  boys 
and  their  nurses,  waiting,  like  us,  for  the 
morning." 

He  was  deeply  fond  of  history.  Brave 
episodes  of  life  and  struggle  appealed  to 
the  imaginative  side  of  his  nature.  Especi- 
ally was  he  moved  by  the  history  of  his 
country,  in  the  dark  days  of  the  persecu- 

34 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

tion  of  the  Presbyterian  faith,  that  form  of 
faith  so  suitable  to  "the  hills  of  home,"  an 
amalgam  of  sternness  and  love,  like  the 
environing  landscapes  which  were  the 
theatre  of  its  manifestations.  Neverthe- 
less, he  was  catholic  in  the  truest  sense. 
His  love  for  Edinburgh,  and  the  combin- 
ation of  meadow,  woodland,  and  mountain 
in  which  it  is  set,  was  pathetically  faithful 
and  abiding,  although  she  behaved  to  him 
like  a  step-mother.  The  same  contradic- 
tions which  appeared  in  most  things  that 
appealed  to  him,  appeared  also  in  this  love 
of  his  for  the  ecclesiastical  history  of  his 
country;  for  the  sunshine  of  his  nature,  in 
combination  with  the  Bohemianism  of  his 
character,  made  him  revolt,  at  certain 
seasons,  against  hard  dogmas  in  its  creed. 
Besides,  he  would  really  have  found  the 
way  to  heaven  wearisome  walking  contin- 
ually with  the  saints.  The  variety  of  the 
road  in  the  other  direction,  with  the  com- 
pany therein,  sometimes  appealed  to  him 

35 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

with  a  freshness  and  a  tang  quite  his  own. 

His  extreme  impatience  of  convention 
led  him,  of  course,  to  be  greatly  mis- 
understood, perhaps  most  of  all  by  his 
own  father,  whose  conventional  ortho- 
doxy he  declared  to  be  something  like  a 
belief  that  "this  life  was  a  shambling  sort 
of  omnibus  which  was  taking  him  to  his 
hotel."  To  himself,  the  clockwork  world 
seemed  so  ridiculous!  It  was  a  weariness 
"to  see  people  skipping  all  round  us,  with 
their  eyes  sealed  up  with  indifference, 
knowing  nothing  of  the  earth,  or  man,  or 
woman,  going  automatically  to  offices,  and 
they  are  happy  or  unhappy  out  of  a  sense 
of  duty,  I  suppose,  surely  at  least  from 
no  sense  of  happiness  or  unhappiness, 
unless  perhaps  they  have  a  tooth  that 
twinges.  Is  it  not  like  a  bad  dream?  Why 
don't  they  stamp  their  foot  upon  the 
ground  and  awake?" 

One  can  trace  the  seeking  of  his  soul 
after  some  kind  of  spiritual  rest,  and  find- 

^6 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

ing  it,  not  in  dogmatic  utterances,  but  in 
general  conclusions.  Sometimes  one  sus- 
pects that  he  is  gropingafter  faith  to  oblige 
his  father,  and  to  make  the  old  man  forget 
the  bitter  arguments  they  have  shared  on 
the  subject.  Still,  one  must  feel  him  to  be 
honest  when  he  says: 

"Strange  as  it  may  seem  to  you,  every- 
thing has  been,  in  one  way  or  the  other, 
bringing  me  a  little  nearer  to  what  I  think 
you  would  like  me  to  be.  'Tis  a  strange 
world,  indeed,  but  there  is  a  manifest  God 
for  those  who  care  to  look  for  Him." 

At  the  same  moment  his  postscript  ex- 
plains his  position.  The  perverse  pixie  ac- 
knowledges his  fault: 

"While  I  am  writing  gravely,  let  me  say 
one  word  more.  I  have  taken  a  step  to- 
wards more  intimate  relations  with  you. 
But  don't  expect  too  much  of  me.  Try  to 
take  me  as  I  am.  This  is  a  rare  moment, 
and  I  have  profited  by  it;  but  take  it  as  a 
rare  moment.  Usually  I  hate  to  speak  of 
37 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

what  I  really  feel,  to  that  extent  that  when 
I  find  myself  cornered,  I  have  a  tendency 
to  say  the  reverse." 

He  is  beginning  to  see  the  fundamental 
earnestness  of  life,  and  he  feels  convinced 
that  every  man  should  leave  a  Bible  be- 
hind him  if  he  is  unable  to  leave  a  jest 
book.  "I  feel  fit  to  leave  nothing  but  my 
benediction."  He  left  it  truly  in  his  words 
that  so  often  are  like  still  music,  in  his 
look  over  the  shadow-threshold  of  the 
Unseen,  in  some  of  his  verse,  haunting  in 
its  pathetic  truth,  and  fruited  melody,  in 
the  strength  which  out  of  his  frequent 
weakness  makes  for  the  uplifting  of  strong- 
er men,  down,  sometimes,  on  their  faces, 
in  sorrow  or  in  failure,  or  in  fruitless  ques- 
tionings in  the  sawdust  ring  of  the  circus 
we  call  life. 

It  is,  indeed,  much  to  talk  with  one  who 
has  gone  through  the  campaign,  lain  strick- 
en in  the  trenches  with  bleeding  wounds, 
and  heard  the  onward-moving  feet  of  the 

38 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

crowd  passing  above  and  around  him.  The 
load  that  irks  our  own  shoulders;  and  the 
ache  in  our  own  hearts  are  uplifted  and 
assuaged  when  we  know  how  weaker  and 
sadder  men  learned  to  endure,  and  to 
triumph  and  be  strong. 


CHAPTER  THREE 

f  •  ^  HERE  WAS  SOME- 
thing  brave  in  his  writing, 
worthy  of  the  lighthouse 
•JL-  building  stock  to  which  he 
belonged.  His  grandfather  had  not  fitted 
up  the  Bell- Rock  lighthouse  for  nought. 
His  father's  moodishness  gave  colour  to 
his  child's  feelings,  and  there  was  much 
in  the  memories  of  the  Manse,  in  which 
some  of  his  childhood  was  spent,  beside 
the  Water  of  Leith  at  Colinton,  where  his 
grandfather,  old  Doctor  Balfour,  so  long 
ministered.  Men  might  have  chosen  to-day 
another  site,  certainly  not  in  the  flat  be- 
tween the  parish  graveyard  and  the  river; 
but  they  could  never  have  selected  a  more 
romantic  or  more  poetic  stance.  Out  of  the 
bedroom  windows  the  belfry,  the  home 
of  white-winged  pigeons,  may  be  seen, 
under  the  shadow  of  which  the  fathers  of 
the  hamlet  sleep;  the  dust  of  poor  men  and 
women  creeping  in  close  to  the  shelter  of 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

the  great  ones  of  the  parish.  The  grave- 
yard of  a  place  like  that  becomes  the  real 
"Who's  Who"  of  the  men  who  gave  of 
their  means,  and  the  men  who  gaveof  their 
labour  for  the  up-building  of  a  community 
for  God  within  sound  of  the  running  river 
singing  seaward  through  the  trees — a  riv- 
er of  mills,  all  speaking  of  honest  industry, 
beating  and  pulsing  with  honest  thought. 
The  village  has  become  now  a  place  of 
villas,  where  the  dry  lungs  of  city  folk  may 
expand  under  the  clean  breath  of  the  hills. 
In  Stevenson's  day  it  was  a  dreamy  ham- 
let— the  churchyard  a  veritable  Garden 
of  Sleep;  while  the  long  grasses,  daisy- 
starred,  were  a  fringe  like  a  benediction 
between  the  faces  of  the  dead  and  the  star- 
ing eye  of  the  world's  day.  The  Manse 
plane  is  a  dreamy  hollow  still.  Under  its 
windows  the  river  flows,  now  fretted  into 
passion  music  by  boulders  that  obstruct  its 
passage  to  the  sea,  now  floating  through 
soul-moving  silences  of  great  deep  shad- 

42 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

owy  pools.  There  are  messages  from  the 
mountains  in  it  for  the  children  of  the 
plains.  To  the  imaginative  boy  the  high 
bank  of  cliff  and  scaur,  up  which  climb  the 
wind-stirred  trees,  was  as  the  border  of 
the  skies,yetwith  the  imaginative  tincture 
of  a  world  beyond  touching  its  lofty  margin 
of  greenery.  His  heart  went  back  long  pil- 
grimages out  of  manhood  to  that  place 
of  running  waters,  with  whose  song  once 
mingled  the  evening  psalm  of  the  Coven- 
anters in  the  snow-covered  kirkyard,  on 
their  last  bivouac  before  death  for  the 
grimand  sternfaiththatwas  drawingthem 
on  to  lonely  Rullion  Green.  It  must  have 
seemed,  and  especially  to  a  heart  touched 
by  the  emotions  of  the  ancient  religion  of 
the  Hebrew  shot  through  with  the  grey 
sunshine  of  Scottish  skies,  adwelling-place 
of  God,  in  which 

The  sparrow  findeth  out 
An  house  wherein  to  rest, 

The  swallow  also  for  herself 
Hath  purchased  a  nest,— 

43 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

the  flash  of  sunshine  on  the  wings  of  doves 
being  almost  the  token  of  angelic  pres- 
ences. 

That  old  place,  secluded  and  remote, 
yet  spoke  of  wide-world  pilgrimages  to 
him  in  whose  heart  was  the  call  of  the 
mystic  flautist  that  plays  always  to  the 
children  of  our  race  the  captivating  call, 
"Over  the  hills  and  faraway!"  For  there 
were  lines  of  communication  from  it  to  the 
ends  of  the  world;  and  the  heavy-footed 
post-carrier,  in  his  coarse  and  common 
satchel,  bore  to  and  fro  messages  with 
strange  foreign  names. 

One  finds  this  reflected  as  in  a  magic 
plate  in  his  Essay  on  the  Manse,  wherein 
he  passes  a  loving  hand  across  the  mirror 
of  remembrance,  his  touch  reviving  pic- 
tures that  are  fading,  and  pictures  that 
have  been  forgotten  quite,  love  bringing 
to  light  a  type  of  Scottish  clergyman  no 
longer  moving  now  through  Assemblies 
of  the  Church.  There  scarce  can  be  to-day 

44 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

the  kind  of  study  like  that  wherein  the  old 
man  sat.  The  library  of  a  parson  of  to- 
day is  different,  with  a  wide  world's  dif- 
ferences, from  that  which  was  marshalled 
on  the  old  man's  shelves.  Even  the  kindly 
grace,  the  dignity  which  was  the  peculiar 
property  of  a  courtier  of  the  Kingof  Kings, 
has  given  place  to  the  preciseness  of  men 
of  affairs,  who  have  to  run  their  parishes 
like  business  establishments.  The  day  of 
quiet  dreams  is  past  for  most  Scottish 
manses.  Shoe-leather,  stair  climbing,  fin- 
ance, the  face-to-face-ness  of  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  social  problems  of  the 
poor  and  the  unclean,  are  in  the  forefront 
of  the  methods  of  the  ecclesiastic  of  to-day. 
Parochial  religion  is  as  practical  a  thing 
as  life  and  fire  insurance.  Not,  of  course, 
that  it  has  lost  the  inspiring  necessity  of 
divine  grace  laid  upon  it  from  the  begin- 
ning; but  much  of  the  simple  sweetness  of 
its  externals  has  for  ever  passed  away. 
Nevertheless,  the  old  place  between  the 

45 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

running  waters  and  the  Garden  of  Sleep, 
which  is  as  a  deep  still  pool  on  this  side 
of  eternity,  remains  practically  the  same; 
and,  to  the  heart  of  R.  L.  Stevenson,  it  al- 
ways remained  as  a  holy  nook  of  memory, 
whither  recurred  his  soul'sbestdreamings. 
Looking  through  the  past,  he  loved  to 
trace  the  residuum  of  inheritance  which 
he  had  received  into  his  own  heart  from 
the  old  minister — "a  love  of  talk,  a  love 
of  teaching,  a  love  of  nuts  and  port  and 
porter."  "  I  would  rise,"  said  he,  "from  the 
dead,  to  preach!"  Though  he  could  not 
tabulate  all  he  felt,  the  presence  of  ancient 
influences  "in  the  very  knot  and  centre  of 
his  present  life  and  experience"  made  him 
as  though  he  kept  step  with  the  stride  of 
the  past;  and  the  mixed  blood  of  border 
fighter,  of  Jacobite  smuggler,  of  deep-sea 
sailor,  and  of  brave  hearts  that  struggled 
in  the  salt  foam  to  fix  up  guiding  lights  for 
mariners.gave  a  measure  to  the  pulse-beat 
of  his  own. 

46 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

There  is  a  great  deal  to  be  reckoned  with 
in  the  rock  from  which  we  are  hewn.  It 
is  difficult  to  get  one's  feet  clear  of  the 
entanglements  of  race  which  cling  about 
our  early  years,  and  the  stories  of  what 
men  of  our  blood  have  done,  whispered 
above  us  when  we  were  little  more  than 
out  of  our  cradles.  The  Scottish  heart 
especially  lingers  among  such  things. 
They  are  the  very  last  to  be  shaken  off 
from  its  remembrance.  The  power  of  an- 
cestor-remembering is  the  history-making 
power  in  the  Scottish  folk-legend.  It  had 
a  special  appeal  to  the  mind  of  Stevenson. 
The  Essay  on  the  Manse  is  full  of  it.  The 
old  place  was  to  him  a  house  of  ghosts. 
The  stairs  creaked  under  steps  that  had 
a  haunting  familiarity  in  their  footfall. 
Indeed,  his  heart  was  haunted,  and  the 
windows  of  it  crowded  with  faces  tantaliz- 
ingly  reminiscent  of  family  portraits  hung 
in  dusty  rooms. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

p  m  •*  HE  INFLUENCE  OF 

his  ancestry,  and  the  serious- 

mindedness  of  his  parents 

JL^         very    naturally    turned   his 

thought  towards  the  entrancement  of  the 

Covenant. 

As  the  result  of  his  reading  on  the 
matter  of  the  religious  persecutions  in 
Scotland  his  Pent  land  Rising,  A  Page  of 
History,  1666,  was  written,  and  was  pub- 
lished anonymously  as  a  small  green 
pamphlet,  issued  by  Andrew  Elliot,  Edin- 
burgh. His  imagination  was  deeply  stirred 
by  the  sufferings  of  his  countrymen,  by 
their  indomitable  courage  and  fearless- 
ness in  the  face  of  death.  He  always  loved 
the  peasantry,  and,  with  that  genial  instinct 
of  genius,  was  drawn  by  sympathy  and 
admiration  to  the  cause  of  the  common 
people.  His  heart  must  have  been  moved 
to  read  of  his  namesake,  John  Stevenson 
of  Cumreggan,  one  of  the  survivors  of 
49  £> 


THE     HILLS     OF      HOME 

Pentland,  who  wrote  A  Rare  Soul- 
strengthening  Cordial,  and  who,  like  all 
men  that  have  passed  through  a  soul- 
crisis,  instinctively  touched  true  style,  as 
when  he  said,  "Many  a  night  have  I  lain 
with  pleasure  in  the  churchyard  of  Old 
Dailly,  and  made  a  grave  my  pillow." 

Wodrow,  whose  page  was  a  pleasure 
to  Stevenson,  and  yet  also  a  weariness, 
with  its  footnotes,  proclamations,  and 
Acts  of  Parliament,  recorded  the  shooting 
of  another  Stevenson,  who  was  in  a  small 
company  surprised  at  prayer  in  MinnigafT 
by  the  notorious  Colonel  James  Douglas, 
Lieutenant  Livingstone,  and  Cornet 
Douglas. 

Therewas  much  inthe  Pentland  episode 
to  stir  the  imagination  and  catch  the  fancy. 
The  Covenanters,  goaded  to  a  corporate 
protest,  seven  hundred  people,  roused  at 
Dairy,  marched  on  towards  Edinburgh, 
under  Wallace  of  Achans,  an  old  cam- 
paigner of  the  Civil  Wars,  who  had  been 

50 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

Lieutenant-Colonel  of  the  Foot  Guards, 
and  who,  by  constant  drill  and  discipline, 
did  his  best  upon  the  way  to  stiffen  his 
peasant  forces  for  the  fight  which  he  felt 
certain  would  be  thrown  across  their  path. 
A  terrible  storm  lashed  them  as  they 
moved  over  the  wild  country  round 
Cumnock,  but  Wallace  defied  the  storm, 
though  it  winnowed  his  ranks  of  some 
who  were  not  weather-proof.  Strong  and 
resolute,  however,  he  allowed  nothing  to 
hinder  his  march;  and  sheltered  his  rabble 
in  St  Bride's  of  Douglas,  among  the  tombs 
of  notable  men  of  war.  At  Lanark  they 
were  one  thousand  strong,  half  of  them 
mounted  on  rough  farm  horses.  They 
pushed  on  by  Bathgate,  "through  pitiable 
broken  moores,"  not  daring  to  lie  down  lest 
they  should  perish  in  the  sleet,  pressing 
forward,  tied  together  lest  they  might  fall 
out  of  the  ranks  in  thedarkness  andstorm. 
In  Colinton  churchyard,  which  lay  cover- 
ed with  frosted  snow,  they  made  their  biv- 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

ouac.  Disturbed  by  the  Edinburgh  Fen- 
cibles,  they  took  to  the  Pentlands,  lofty 
and  austere  in  the  November  morning, 
swinging  round  by  Dreghorn  Castle, 
Woodhouselee,  and  Ingliston  Bridge  to 
Rullion  Green,  an  ancient  market  stance 
on  the  south-east  base  of  Turnhouse  Hill, 
familiar  to  the  drovers  of  the  South,  where 
many  a  ragged  "rullion"  had  been  gath- 
ered to  the  cattle  trysts.  Dalyell  came  on 
from  Currie  by  the  drove  road  between 
Capelaw  and  Bellshill,  past  Saint  Cather- 
ine's Chapel,  now  hid  beneath  the  Edin- 
burgh water  reservoir.  The  experienced 
eye  of  Wallace  selected  this  for  his  des- 
perate stand.  A  natural  trench  cut  the  old 
drove  road,  and  overhead  was  the  Turn- 
house  Hill,  fifteen  hundred  feet  high. 
West  and  south  the  green  slopes  rolled 
to  the  foot  of  Carnethy,  while  on  the  north 
the  ground  dropped  three  hundred  feet 
in  half  a  mile,  towards  the  Castlelaw 
Hill,  where  the  Glencorse  burn  "dreams 

52 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

and  pours  in  cunning  wimples  in  that 
glen." 

The  army  of  the  Covenant  had  in  it 
only  sixty  muskets,  forty  brace  of  pistols, 
and  twenty  pounds  of  loose  powder,  while 
Dalyell's  three  thousand  were  well-armed 
disciplined  troops.  A  contemporary  ballad 
scornfully  recounts  how 

"Some  had  halbards;  some  had  durks; 
Some  had  crooked  swords  like  Turks; 
Some  had  slings,  and  some  had  flails 
Knit  with  eel  and  oxen  tails; 
Some  had  spears  and  some  had  pikes; 
Some  had  spades  which  delvyt  dykes; 
Some  had  guns  with  rusty  ratches; 
Some  had  firey  peats  for  matches; 
Some  had  bows  but  wanted  arrows; 
Some  had  pistols  without  marrows; 
Some  the  coulter  of  a  plough; 
Some  had  scyths  men  and  horse  to  hough; 
And  some  with  a  Lochaber  axe 
Resolved  to  give  Dalyell  his  paiks." 

A  fight  like  that  which  ensued  was 
fraught  with  imaginative  power.  It  kindl- 
ed imagination  even  in  the  rough  men 
who,  havingpassed  through  this  struggle, 
53 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

wrote  their  ill-spelled  letters  about  their 
experience.  Drummond,  for  example,  writ- 
ing to  Rothes,  described  the  skirmish  in 
a  thumb-nail  sketch.  "They  mixed,"  he 
says,  "like  chess-men  in  a  bag."  Rude 
though  their  weapons  were,  the  hearts  of 
the  peasantry  were  pathetically  staunch, 
and  their  scythes  mounted  on  poles  were 
terrible  against  the  charges  of  the  horse- 
men. 

There  were  figures  among  them  that 
would  stand  out  from  the  most  prosaic 
page,  sure  to  catch  Stevenson's  eye — men 
like  Captain  Paton  of  Meadowhead— 
whose  trenchant  blade,  notched  with  its 
dour  battle  work,  may  still  be  seen — a 
veteran  who  had  fought  in  comradeship 
with  Dalyell  himself  in  the  German  wars, 
and  who  had  gone  through  Kilsyth,  Phil- 
iphaugh  and  Worcester.  He  and  Dalyell 
knew  each  other's  fighting  weight.  As 
Paton  cut  down  trooper  after  trooper  sent 
to  kill  him, he  grimly  cried,  "Go  home  and 

54 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

tell  your  master  I  cannot  come  to  sup  with 
him  to-night!"  How  Joab,  the  captain  of 
David's  host,  would  have  loved  a  man 
like  that!  What  a  vindictive  psalm  he 
might  have  written. 

A  great  mass  of  the  defeated  peasantry 
were  captured  and  driven  like  cattle,  to  be 
penned  like  beasts  in  Greyfriars  church- 
yard, in  Edinburgh,  while  many  found 
their  last  long  bivouac  on  the  green  side 
of  the  Pentlands,  where  they  had  fought 
their  final  fight.  "Next  day,"  we  are  told, 
"the  godly  women  of  Edinburgh  went  out 
and  buried  in  shrouds  the  dead  who  lay 
stricken  on  the  bloody  sward  of  Rullion 
Green." 

Stevenson  was  caught,  very  naturally, 
by  the  thought  of  those  men  who  had  left 
the  farm  and  the  plough,  and,  with  the 
very  implements  of  their  labour,  scythes 
and  flails,  went  out  to  die  for  their  faith. 
The  quiet  hills  seemed  to  speak  to  him  of 
their  stern  resolve.  His  soul  had  grown 
55 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

up  in  the  environment  of  a  strongly  Pres- 
byterian house;  and  the  romantic  chivalry 
of  his  nature  responded  to  the  self-forget- 
fulness  of  the  brave  peasantry  and  landed 
gentry  who  had  felt  their  patriotism  bound 
up  thus  with  their  religion.  Stevenson, 
much  to  the  joy  of  his  father,  toiled  on  this 
episode,  but  he  made  it  into  a  story,  a 
method  which  did  not  meet  with  the  ap- 
proval of  the  domestic  censor.  He  there- 
fore wrote  the  small  green-covered  pam- 
phlet; which,  however,  was  soon  after- 
wards bought  in,  as  far  as  possible,  by  his 
father. 

The  simple  suffering  devotion  of  the 
Covenanters  clung  to  his  sympathy.  The 
graves  of  the  martyrs,  scattered  every- 
where in  quiet  moors,  in  lonely  places 
where  they  fell,  gripped  his  fancy.  When- 
ever he  writes  about  them,  his  writing 
gains  power  by  the  spiritual  transcript  of 
the  gaunt  simplicity  of  the  subject.  Noth- 
ing needs  to  be  added  to  lines  like  these: 

56 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

"We  went  up  the  stream  a  little  further 
to  where  two  Covenanters  lie  buried  in  an 
oakwood."  The  picture  of  an  emotion 
stands  therein  clear  and  perfect. 

The  appeal  of  the  persecuted  remnant 
held  sway  over  him  to  the  end;  and  it  was 
far  away  from  home,  that  home  which  he 
was  never  to  behold  again,  that  he  wrote 
to  S.  R.  Crockett  the  three  touching  ver- 
ses, instinct  with  pity  for  the  outcast  folk: 

Blows  the  wind  to-day,  and  the  sun  and  the  rain  are 

flying, 

Blows  the  wind  on  the  moors  to-day  and  now, 
Where  about  the  graves  of  the  martyrs  the  whaups 

are  crying, 
My  heart  remembers  how! 

Grey  recumbent  tombs  of  the  dead  in  desert  places, 
Standing  stones  on  the  vacant  wine-red  moor, 

Hills  of  sheep,  and  the  homes  of  the  silent  vanished 

races, 
And  winds,  austere  and  pure: 

Be  it  granted  me  to  behold  you  again  in  dying, 
Hills  of  home!  and  to  hear  again  the  call; 

Hear  about  the  graves  of  the  martyrs  the  peewees 

crying, 
And  hear  no  more  at  all. 

57 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  how 
much  of  this  was  actually  inspired  by  the 
lonely  places  which  were  the  scenes  of  the 
struggles  of  the  faithful,  and  which  were 
the  enfolding  receptacle  of  their  graves. 
The  fact  and  its  envelope  made  their  ap- 
peal, often,  together,  to  Stevenson's  sens- 
itive mind.  Undoubtedly  the  solitude 
which  was  the  arena  of  the  conflict  and 
the  sacrifice  of  those  simple  courageous 
bands  deepened  the  piteousness  of  their 
story,  emphasizing  their  bitter  outcasting. 
The  grey  wilderness  became  vibrant,  for 
him,  with  their  appeal  for  the  recognition 
of  the  stern  and  terrible  justice 
of  their  cause. 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

r    •    ^  HE  SCOTTISH   MIND 

is  indomitably  moulded  by 
the  mountain,  the  desert  and 
JL^         the  sea,  the  three  great  influ- 
ences which  make  for  deep  things  in  the 
heart.  It  is  manifest  that  that  trinity  ap- 
pealed immeasurably  to  Stevenson. 

Yet  love  of  Nature,  and  the  recognition 
of  the  appeal  of  Scottish  landscape  to  the 
soul,  came  late  in  the  day;  in  fact,  it  is  the 
characteristic  of  the  modern  spirit  of  Scot- 
tish Literature.  One  need  not  be  astonish- 
ed at  that,  if  one  remembers,  alongside  of 
it,  the  remarkable  fact  that,  though  we  are 
a  maritime  race,  it  is  only  in  modern  times 
that  even  an  anthology  of  sea  poems  could 
be  compiled  in  our  literature,  which  one 
would  expect  really  to  be  full  of  sea-tangle 
and  driftwood; while  suchathingis  impos- 
sible in  connection  with  woodland  and  for- 
est verse.  Montgomerie,  Scott  and  Hume, 
it  istrue,inthe  sixteenth  century  sawbeau- 
59 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

ty  in  Nature;  but  not  until  Drummond  of 
Hawthornden  does  that  feeling  find  utter- 
ance in  Scottish  poetry  again,  and  he  pass- 
ed it  on  as  a  growing  thing  to  Allan  Ram- 
say. There  was  love  of  country,  undoubted- 
ly,which  sprang  from  the  keenly  a  wakened 
feeling  for  natural  liberty;  but  the  passion 
for  the  hills,  the  field  and  the  stream,  the 
communion  with  the  spirit  of  the  moun- 
tains, and  the  deep  romantic  love  of  lone- 
ly places,  was  essentially  modern.  A  man 
loved  the  spot  that  gave  him  birth,  the  glen 
that  sheltered  him,  or  the  town  within 
whose  walls  his  people  had  found  protec- 
tion,the  streets  and  lanes  in  which  he  play- 
ed with  his  earliest  comrades;but,down  till 
the  eighteenth  century, to  thegeneral  mass 
of  the  poets  and  the  great  body  of  the 
people,  the  vast  wild  lonely  places  were 
looked  upon  with  something  like  terror, 
when  not  with  absolute  repulsion.  Burt,  in 
his  letters  from  the  North,  spoke  of  the 
hills  as  grisly  and  ugly,  and  "especially  so 

60 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

when  the  heather  was  in  bloom!  "The  man 
whose  genius  changed  all  that,  clothing 
even  the  ragged  caterans  with  the  colours 
of  romance,  was  Sir  Walter  Scott,  who,  by 
accentuating  the  charm  of  native  scenery, 
wrote  the  deeper  on  the  patriotic  heart  of 
the  people  the  love  of  native  land.  Never- 
theless, Drummond  was  unique  in  his  time 
in  discerning  and  expressing  in  his  verse 
the  still  beauty  of  a  lofty  mountain  cover- 
ed with  snow,  an  exquisite  feature  of  a 
Scottish  landscape,  to  which,  perhaps,  he 
had  been  educated  through  his  travels  a- 
broad,  when  he  had  beheld  the  splendid 
colouring  of  the  snow-crowned  Alps.  In 
this  he  was  a  pioneer. 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson  was,  in  these 
respects,  a  worthy  son  of  his  race;  and, 
while  he  was  a  true  child  of  Edinburgh, 
lovingitsplainstones  with  a  filial  affection, 
yet,  the  glamour  of  the  hills,  and  especially 
of  those  which  were  near  his  native  city, 
held  him  overmasteringly.  When,  there- 
61 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

fore,  in  1867,  his  parents  took  a  lease  of 
Swanston  Cottage,  at  the  foot  of  Kirk  Yet- 
ton,  and  he  spent  his  time  between  Edin- 
burgh and  Swanston,  the  influences  and 
associations  of  green  hill  and  grey  rock,of 
misty  peak  and  quiet  and  still  places,  took 
a  large  part  in  the  moulding  of  his  thought 
and  of  the  form  of  its  expression. 

Very  early  the  love  of  Nature  and  of 
lonely  places  had  possessed  him,  and  led 
him  away  out  of  beaten  tracks  of  conduct 
and  of  duty.  He  loved  to  play  truant  from 
school,  and  from  the  matter-of-fact  dis- 
cipline of  lessons.  The  voice  of  Spring 
especially  would  call  to  his  willing  heart — 

"Come  with  me  over  the  hill  so  free, 
Where  the  winds  are  blowing, 
And  the  streams  are  flowing 
On  to  the  shining  sea." 

He  was  always  for  "Over  the  hills  and 
faraway,"  at  the  very  first  impulse.  The 
strain  of  Nature  sang  to  him  the  Song  of 
the  Open  Road,  and  his  heart  leapt  to  its 
measure. 

62 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

It  was  a  suitable  education,  indeed,  for 
a  child  like  him.  His  truant  hours  were 
charged  with  inspiration.  Indeed,  the  best 
school  for  such  a  spirit  was  the  free  field, 
and  Nature  was  his  best  professor.  The 
air  of  open  places  got  into  the  breath  of  his 
vocabulary,  and  gave  a  spacious  dignity  of 
its  own  to  his  style.  And  yet,  along  with  the 
spontaneity  which  is  the  grace  of  genius 
he  brought  into  the  creation  of  that  style 
which  was  the  expression  of  himself,  the 
grace  of  industry.  The  acquisition  of  the 
art  of  writing  was  with  him  a  work  of  piety 
and  of  labour.  Without  his  wanderings 
over  Kirk  Yetton,  Allermuir,  Cauldstane 
Slap  and  the  rest,  his  mind  would  have 
missed  the  free  stride  of  its  utterance.  The 
very  names  appealed  to  him;  and  he  pass- 
ed on  their  glamour  togenerations  of  read- 
ers. Nor  would  he  have  been  brought  in 
contact  with  the  mind  and  character  of 
men  like  John  Tod  the  Herd,  and  Robert 
Young  the  Gardener. 
63 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

His  college  days  were  not  remarkable 
for  that  close  attendance  on  lectures  and 
assiduous  devotion  to  note-taking  which 
usually  mark  out  a  student  for  the  respect 
of  his  Professors.  His  contemporaries  did 
not,  indeed,  gauge  his  qualities  as  a  whole. 
Some  fell  short  altogether.  I  have  actually 
heard  one  who  was  with  him  in  the  Specu- 
lative Society  say  that  some  of  them  never 
really  listened  to  any  paper  he  wrote;  and, 
far  more  clearly  than  his  appearances  in 
a  discussion,  recalled  theoccasion on  which 
he  turned  up  driving  a  cab,  which,  because 
he  was  late,  he  had  boldly  seized  on  the 
stance,  leaving  the  open-mouthed  vocifer- 
ous cabman  helplessly  gazing  after  him.  I 
do  not  know  the  name  of  the  friend  who 
was  brave  enough  to  drive  the  cab  back, 
and  leave  it  among  the  ruins  of  Jehu's  voc- 
abulary. His  was  surely  the  bolder  half  of 
the  adventure. 

While  the  sound  of  the  sea,  and  the 
glamour  of  the  hills  everywhere  appealed 

64 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

to  his  Scottish  heart,  men  appealed  to 
him  also,  through  the  same  mental  chan- 
nel. Knox,  "strong,  salient,  and  worthy," 
Scoto-Hebraic,  religio-political  prophet 
and  pioneer  of  so  much  that  is  great  in  his 
native  land,  especially  in  educational  or- 
ganization; Hume  and  Burns,  with  Scott, 
"the  ever  delightful  man  sane,  courage- 
ous, admirable,"  as  he  designated  him, 
these  were  shadows  that  spoke  to  him 
strongly  out  of  the  past. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  how  Nature  im- 
pressed him  through  channels  of  native  in- 
fluence, wherein  religion,  like  a  ghost,  nev- 
er far  away  from  the  heels  of  any  Scots- 
man, coloured  his  view;  as  when  he  wrote 
from  Wick  of  the  storm  he  beheld  there, 
in  which  the  spray  rose  eighty  feet  above 
the  new  pier.  "I  stood  a  long  while  on 

the  cope  watching  the  sea  below  me 

I  hear  its  dull  monotonous  roar  at  this 
moment  below  the  shrieking  of  the  wind, 
and  there  came  ever  recurring  to  my  mind 
65  E 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

the  verse  I  am  so  fond  of — 

'But  yet  the  Lord  that  is  on  high 

Is  more  of  might  by  far 
Than  noise  of  many  waters  is 

Or  great  sea  billows  are,' " 

Edinburgh,  of  course,  spoke  to  him 
with  power  equal,  perhaps,  to  that  of  the 
hills.  That  fair  city — about  which  every- 
thing that  is  good  has  been  said,  fre- 
quently so  badly  because  no  words  can 
express  the  charm,  material  and  spiritual, 
of  the  grey  Scottish  capital,  with  the  peak 
of  Arthur's  Seat  looking  down  the  alleys, 
watching  the  crowded  houses;  with  the 
cry  of  the  bugles  at  the  castle;  and  the 
power  of  that  poem  in  stone-and-lime  up 
on  the  moss-grown  rock,  the  throne  of 
kings  of  old — held  his  heart  until  the  end. 
Its  appeal  is,  of  course,  unique,  with  its 
view  of  the  Forth,  and  the  Highland  hills, 
from  its  very  streets. 

"After  all,"  he  writes,  "new  countries, 
sun,  music,  and  all  the  rest,  can  never  take 

66 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

down  our  gusty,  rainy,  smoky,  grim  old 
city  out  of  the  first  place  that  it  has  been 
making  for  itself  in  the  bottom  of  my  soul, 
by  all  pleasant  and  hard  things  that  have 
befallen  me  for  these  past  twenty  years  or 
so.  My  heart  is  buried  there — say,  in 
Advocate's  Close!" 

And  once  more  he  writes — 

"Hearkening  I  heard  again 
In  my  precipitous  city,  beaten  bells 
Winnow  the  keen  sea  wind." 

He  had  the  memorizing  eye  of  the  art- 
ist, which  carries  away  in  one  glance  all 
that  it  sees,  and  which  appeals,  as  though 
with  visual  music,  to  the  heart.  One  sees 
that,  in  his  letter  to  Crockett,  where  he 
speaks  of  Glencorse  Kirk — the  quiet 
cruciform  structure  which  figures  in  Weir 
of  Hermiston.  "Do  you  know  where  the 
road  crosses  the  burn  under  Glencorse 
Church?  Go  there,  and  say  a  prayer  for 
me:  moriturus  salutat.  See  that  it's  a 
sunny  day;  I  would  like  it  to  be  a  Sunday, 
67 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

but  that's  not  possible  in  the  premises; 
and  stand  on  the  right-hand  bank  just 
where  the  road  goes  down  into  the  water, 
and  shut  your  eyes,  and  if  I  don't  appear 
to  you!  well,  it  can't  be  helped,  and  will  be 
extremely  funny." 

On  his  return  from  the  South  of  Europe 
in  1874  he  went  to  live  at  Swanston.  The 
shadowof  the  Pentlands,and  the  sunshine 
drifting  along  their  slopes,  again  moved 
about  his  life.  In  May  the  sleet  was  on  the 
hills,  for  Swanston  sits  six  hundred  feet 
above  the  sea.  He  reclined  there,  quaff- 
ing the  caller  air.  The  high  wintry  wind- 
the  grey  sky,  the  clamour  of  blackbirds, 
"the  bleating  of  sheep  being  shorn  in  a 
field  near  the  garden,"  the  gold  coming 
out  upon  the  whins,  the  great  trailing 
flight  of  crows  "passing  continually  be- 
tween the  wintry  leaden  sky  and  the 
wintry  cold-looking  hills,"  these  made  up 
the  environing  picture  of  his  soul's  life  at 
Swanston.  Here  he  worked,  and  worked 

68 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

hard,  striving  ever  after  Literature,  the 
purest,  truest  utterance  of  the  best  things 
and  thoughts — seeking,  beyond  Journal- 
ism, the  finer  essences,  the  higher  em- 
bodiment of  the  essential  soul.  Here  he 
developed  a  gospel — thoughhis  body  was 
decrepit  he  seeks  for  cheer,  and  finds  it  by 
crowding  hypochondria  out  of  his  lifewith 
the  work  whereby  he  fills  it.  "Nothing, 
indeed,  but  work  all  day  long,  except  a 
short  walk  alone  on  the  cold  hills,  and 
meals,  and  a  couple  of  pipes  with  my  father 
in  the  evening." 

His  walks  among  the  hills  uplifted  and 
solemnized  his  outlook,  bringing  him  into 
contact  with  the  heart  of  Nature,  and  with 
the  striking,  deeply  sober  originality  of 
the  grave  men  who  herded  sheep  in  lone- 
ly places,  companioning  with  Thought — 
men  whose  brooding  isolation  kept  their 
souls  apart  from  overcrowding  talk,  until 
that  uniqueness  of  view  and  expression 
which  the  world  calls  Originality,  with 
69 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

quaintness  frequent  beneath  its  cloak, 
grew  up  within  their  hearts  and  moved 
upon  their  lips. 

Swanston  was  for  him  a  place  of  miscell- 
aneous reading,  working,  and  thinking. 
The  Trial  of  Joan  of  Arc,  Pas  ton  Letters, 
Basin  the  French  historian,  Boswell,  Pil- 
grims Progress,  and  the  book  of  wild,  tu- 
multuous, gusty  Nature,  were  his  library 
there.  And  his  fancy  peopled  its  environ- 
mentwith  the  crowd  of  its  creations.  S  wan- 
stonCottagefiguresin,Sy/z>£yasthehomeof 
Flora  and  her  aunt  Miss  Gilchrist.  When 
the  French  prisoner  escapes  from  Edin- 
burgh Castle  it  is  to  Swanston  that  he  flees 
for  shelter.  The  drovers  Simms  and  Cand- 
lish,  who  are  to  lead  St  I  ves  across  the  bord- 
ers, are  pretty  much  John  Tod  the  Swans- 
tonherdmade  intotwinsjand  theyleadhim 
overthePentlands  to  the  great  North  road. 
So  also  in  Weir  of  Hermiston,  though  the 
geography  is  not  exact,  yet  the  places  and 
descriptions  are  true  to  the  "hillsof  home.' 

70 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

The  silence  of  the  glens  conferred  upon 
him  the  wide-open  observant  eye  and  the 
responsive  heart.  He  forgot  the  limitat- 
ions of  the  Edinburgh  plainstones;  he  saw 
the  mystery  of  the  little  worlds  within  the 
world  of  Nature.Onecan  trace  that  through 
his  letters.  You  can  see  him  watch  the 
plover,  nervously  flapping  the  attention  of 
the  wanderer  away  from  his  nest;  or,  in  a 
brown  muse,  hepokes  disaster  into  the  big 
busy  community  of  ants.  He  hears  and 
sees  what  often  is  hid  from  the  mere  towns- 
man, the  child  of  cities,  enslaved  to  exist- 
ence in  cramping  streets.  These  things 
were  enriching  the  essayist's  vision,  deep- 
ening his  humanity,  widening  out  his  sym- 
pathy, giving  him  the  secret  of  that  uni- 
versal love  without  which,  as  the  Scripture 
hath  it,  all  earthly  eloquence  and  human 
gifts  are  vain.  He  becomes  as  personal  in 
his  individual  touch  as  Montaigne.  He 
argues  with  his  conscience  over  having 
been  rude  to  one  of  the  servants — he  an- 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

alyses  his  very  worry  over  the  apologiz- 
ing. 

He  was  stirred  by  the  activity  of  Nature, 
the  sound  of  Nature's  unrest.  The  garden 
at  Swanston  had  its  share  of  this  kind  of 
thing,  when  the  wind  blew  straight  out  of 
the  hills,  laden  with  the  breath  of  the 
whins.  He  says:  "The  trees  were  all  in  a 
tempest,  and  roared  like  a  heavy  surf;  the 
paths  all  strewn  with  fallen  apple-blossom 
and  leaves.  I  got  a  quiet  seat  behind  a  yew 
and  went  away  into  ameditation.  I  was  very 
happy  after  my  own  fashion,  and  whenever 
there  came  a  blink  of  sunshine,  or  a  bird 
whistled  higher  than  usual,  or  a  little  pow- 
der of  white  apple-blossom  came  over  the 
hedge  and  settled  about  me  in  the  grass,  I 
had  the  gladdest  little  flutter  at  my  heart, 
and  stretched  myself  for  very  voluptuous- 
ness." 

In  the  restfulness  of  the  garden-house 
he  was  sometimes  driven  in  upon  himself; 
andquestions  ofTo-morrow,andthe  furth- 

72 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

er  future  veiled  in  the  mystery  of  Beyond, 
combined  with  the  wind-symphonies  and 
the  picture-making  spell  of  the  mists,  made 
hisdays  only  swift  enough  in  their  passing. 
He  had  thoughts,  too,  on  topics  that  had 
perplexed  him,  which  arguments  with  his 
father  had  not  sweetened.  Yet  Time,  not 
argument,  was  clarifying  them. 

"This  God  may  not  be  cruel  when  all  is 
done;  He  may  relent  and  be  good  to  us  d 
la  fin  des  fins.  Think  of  how  He  tempers 
our  afflictions  to  us,  of  how  tenderly  He 
mixes  in  bright  joys  with  the  grey  web  of 
trouble  and  care  that  we  call  our  life." 

He  was  extremely  sensitive  to  the  Pa- 
thetic Fallacy. 

"It  maybe  that  two  clods  together,  two 
flowers  together,  twogrown  trees  together 
touching  each  other  deliciously  with  their 
spread  leaves,  it  may  be  that  these  dumb 
things  have  their  own  priceless  sympath- 
ies, surer  and  more  untroubled  than  ours." 

The  influence  of  the  lonely  and  remote 
73 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

environment  played  on  his  heart  and  feel- 
ings as  on  a  most  variedly  sensitive  in- 
strument. Sometimes  he  hated  the  noisy 
breezes.  "In  my  hell,"  said  he,  "it  would 
always  blow  a  gale."  In  one  of  his  most  in- 
teresting letters  he  says: 

' '  The  day  was  warm  enough,  but  it  blew 
a  whole  gale  of  windjand  the  noise  and  the 
purposeless  rude  violence  of  it  somehow 
irritated  and  depressed  me.  There  was 
good  news,  however,  though  the  anxiety 
must  still  be  long.  O  peace,  peace,  whither 
are  you  fled  and  where  have  you  carried 
my  old  quiet  humour?  I  am  so  bitter  and 
disquiet,  and  speak  even  spitefully  to 
people.  And  somehow,  though  I  promise 
myself  amendment,  day  after  day  finds  me 
equally  rough  and  sour  to  those  about  me. 
But  this  would  pass  with  good  health  and 
good  weather;  and  at  bottom  I  am  not 
unhappy;  the  soil  is  still  good  although 
it  bears  thorns;  and  the  time  will  come  a- 
gain  for  flowers." 

74 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

Although  his  soul  feels  driven,  buffeted 
and  beaten  by  the  wind  that  roars  among 
the  trees,  though  he  knows  that  the  hill- 
top is  sheeted  likea  ghost  in  grey  rain,  and 
the  valleysare  filled  with  mist,  yet  his  heart 
is  sheltered  in  warmth  and  quiet,  the  gar- 
den is  fairand  all  its  sweetness  lying  in  the 
dim  love-light  of  the  veiled  moon,  and  the 
lingering  glamour  of  dying  day;  and  he 
knows  there  is  beauty  still  in  the  lovely 
world  he  lives  in.  But  the  knowledge  has 
sorrow  clinging  to  the  skirt  of  its  gladness. 
There  is  a  shadow  familiar  to  him  in  the 
sweetness  of  the  scene. 

The  questionings  and  lingerings  about 
the  door  of  the  grave,  so  characteristic  of 
Scottish  Calvinism,  are  not  necessarily 
morbid  things,  but  just  like  going  round 
about  an  old  friend's  house,  trying  the 
latch,  and  peeping  in  occasionally  at  the 
window. 

AtSwanston  he  was  often  ill  and  weary, 
but  it  was  the  anvil-hammering  time,  the 

75 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

crushing  of  thought  into  imperishable 
form  in  the  laminated  life. 

He  was  very  sensitive  to  all  sound.  'I 
have  been  made  miserable,"  he  wrote, 
"by  Chopin's  Marche  Funebre.  Reading 
those  things  which  I  like  aloud  when  I  am 
fancifully  excited  is  the  keenest  artistic 
pleasure  I  know."  This  he  inherited  from 
his  mother,  who  would  sometimes  be 
moved  to  tears  even  by  an  anthem  in  the 
church.  Again,  he  writes  under  emotion: 
"The  drums  and  fifes  up  in  the  castle  were 
sounding  thecall  through  the  dark. "  These 
very  frequently  went  through  his  soul. 

Every  aspect  of  Edinburgh  spoke  to 
him — the  silence  that  sometimes  holds 
the  city  as  well  as  the  sound  that  fills  it. 
"The  gardens  below  my  windows  are 
steeped  in  diffused  sunlight,  and  every 
tree  seems  standing  on  tip-toe,  strained 
and  silent  as  though  to  get  its  head  above 
its  neighbours  and  listen. . .  I  wish  I  could 
make  you  feel  the  hush  that  is  over  every- 

76 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

thing,  only  made  the  more  perfect  by  rare 
interruptions  and  the  rich  placid  light  and 
the  still  autumnal  foliage." 

The  summer  days  at  Swanston  enriched 
his  heart's  experience  of  communion  with 
Nature;  while  in  winter  the  swift  glance, 
like  a  swallow's  flight,  across  the  Forth, 
from  the  back  windows  of  Heriot  Row, 
caught  vision  of  the  hills  of  Fife,  beyond 
the  shining  Firth  which  "bridled  the  wild 
Hielan'man"  in  the  days  of  old.  Swanston 
gave  him  also  word  pictures  which  stand 
out  clear  and  perfect  in  a  line  or  two.  "How 
the  rain  falls!  The  mist  is  quite  low  on  the 
hill." 

He  frequently  felt  his  inertness  as  a  re- 
proach; as  though  he  were  but  "something 
for  the  winds  to  blow  over,  and  the  sun  to 
glimpse  on  and  go  off  again,  as  it  might 
be  a  tree  or  a  gravestone."  At  the  same 
time  he  had  a  silver  lining  to  his  cloud,  for 
almost  in  the  same  breath  he  says: 

"Here  lambackagaininmyoldhumour 
77 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

of  a  sunny  equanimity;  to  see  the  world 
fleet  about  me;  and  the  days  chase  each 
other  like  sun  patches,  and  the  nights  like 
cloud  shadows,  on  a  windy  day;  content 
to  see  them  go,  and  no  wise  reluctant  for 
the  cool  evening,  with  its  dew,  and  stars, 
and  fading  stain  of  tragic  red." 

Sometimes  his  love  of  country,  obliter- 
ated by  the  mists  of  suffering  and  pain 
which  he  had  endured  as  if  at  hard  hands, 
broke  through  like  a  sunburst  from  behind 
the  darkness. 

"I  have  been  a  Scotchman,"  said  he, 
"all  my  life  and  denied  my  native  land." 

Yet,  again,  he  could  laugh  at  it: 

"Here  I  am  in  my  native  land,  being 
gently  blown  and  hailed  upon,  and  creep- 
ing closer  and  closer  to  the  fire." 
The  pathos  of  his  struggle  against  the  anx- 
ieties of  life  often  peeps  its  head  through 
the  golden  clouds.  Although  by  1887  he 
was  worth  about  ,£4000  a  year,  his  income 
in  1880  was  only  ^109,  but  he  declared 

78 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

himself  ready  to  face  the  world  on  £200. 
He  feels,  as  a  test  of  success  of  his  labour, 
"If  you  can  interest  a  person  for  an  hour 
and  a  half  you  have  not  been  idle."  He 
loves  the  balm  a  story  gives  in  sick  weari- 
ness. "We  want  incident,  interest,  action: 
to  the  devil  with  your  philosophy.  When 
we  are  well  again,  and  have  an  easy  mind, 
we  shall  peruse  your  important  work.  . . . 
So  I,  when  I  am  ready  to  go  beside  myself, 
stick  my  head  into  a  story-book,  as  the 
ostrich  with  her  bush." 

His  optimism  had,  however,  many  a 
struggle  with  pessimism,  which  was  his 
chamber-companion  also.  "I  am  not  well 
at  all,"  he  writes.  "But  hope  to  be  better. 
. . .  To-morrow  I  may  be  carrying  topgal- 
lant sails  again.  But  just  at  present  I  am 
scraping  along  with  a  jurymast  and  a  kind 
of  amateur  rudder." 

There  was  more  truth  than  perhaps  he 
thought  in  his  humoresque  sketch  of  his 
tomb,  with  its  motto — 

79 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

"ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

born  1850,  of  a  family  of  engineers, 

died          .... 

'Nitor  aquis.' 

Home  is  the  sailor,  home  from  sea, 
And  the  hunter  home  from  the  hill. 

You,  who  pass  this  grave,  put  aside  hatred; 
love  kindness;  be  all  services  remembered 
in  your  heart,  and  all  offences  pardoned." 

He  was  bravely  content  to  suffer.  He  is 
a  wounded  soldier  in  the  campaign  of  life. 
Yet  he  begs  that  he  have  not  to  suffer 
more  than  he  can  bear.  "For  that  makes 
a  man  mad."  At  the  same  time  he  prays, 
"Never  to  sink  up  to  my  eyes  in  comfort, 
and  grow  dead  in  virtues  and  respect- 
ability." 

He  sees  the  ennobling  discipline  of  life's 
trials.  He  says: "  I  am  a  bad  man  by  nature, 
I  suppose;  but  I  cannot  be  good  without 
sufferinga  little."  Hediscerns,also,  plainly, 
through  that  window  of  pain,  what  is  the 
end  of  life — "The  pleasurable  death  of 

80 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

self:  a  thing  not  to  be  attained  because  it 
is  a  thing  belonging  to  heaven." 

He  had  the  universal  sympathy  of  the 
truest  genius.  As  when  he  saw  the  little 
feathered  world  invaded  by  the  terror  of  a 
hawk,  and  noted  the  songless  thrill  of  fear 
that  filled  the  garden.  "I  did  not  know  be- 
fore,"he  says,  "that  the  voice  of  birds  could 
be  so  tragically  expressive.  .  .  .  Really, 
they  almost  frightened  me;  I  could  hear 
mothers  and  wives  in  terror  for  those  who 
were  dear  to  them." 

His  frequent  bitterness  of  utterance 
and  discontent  was  not  by  any  means  his 
natural  mood.  He  was  not  given  to  con- 
centration upon  his  own  self.  With  that 
poetic  altruism  which  made  Burns,  in  the 
heart  of  storm  and  winter,  think  of  the 
suffering  creatures,  he  writes: 

"It  is  a  fine  strong  night,  full  of  wind; 
the  trees  are  all  crying  out  in  the  darkness; 
funny  to  think  of  the  birds  asleep  outside, 
on  the  tossing  branches,  the  little  bright 
81  F 


THE     HILLS     OF      HOME 

eyes  closed,  the  brave  wings  folded,  the 
little  hearts  that  beat  so  hard  and  thick  (so 
much  harder  and  thicker  than  ever  human 
heart)  all  stilled  and  quieted  in  deep 
slumber,  in  the  midst  of  this  noise  and 
turmoil.  Why,  it  will  be  as  much  as  I  can 
do  to  sleep  in  here  in  my  walled  room;  so 
loud  and  jolly  the  wind  sounds  through 
the  open  window."  As  he  listens,  the  night's 
unrest  gets  into  his  being.  He  sees  the  far- 
stretching  world,  of  unknown  and  untra- 
versed  spaces,  the  roads  that  wind  away 
behind  the  hills,  "the  sleeping  towns  and 
sleeping  farm-houses  and  cottages,"  the 
low  places  down  beside  the  surf-beaten 
shores,  and  his  fancy  fares  a- foot  past 
them  all,  with  Slumber  following,red-eyed, 
behind  him. 

In  that  same  letter  his  wayward  mood 
finds  expression.  It  is  the  spirit  of  the 
essayist,  tired  with  the  struggle. 

The  impulse  to  begin  life  at  the  very 
start  of  a  fresh  furrow,  out  under  the  clear 

82 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

azure  coolness  of  the  night,  away  from  the 
fret  and  fever  that  have  made  his  efforts 
such  distress,  and  to  go  on,  without  turn- 
ing or  returning,  "until  somewhere  by  a 
road-side  or  in  some  clean  inn,  clean  death 
opened  his  arms  to  me  and  took  me  to  his 
quiet  heart  for  ever."  It  would  be  like  fall- 
ing into  that  deep  Sleep  which  tired  hu- 
manity longs  for,  like  a  ripe  thing,  carrying 
the  full  heart  of  a  chastened  experience 
with  him  over  the  shadow-limit  into  the 
Land  of  Dawn.  He  has  been  friends  with 
Death.  H  e  has  felt  the  grass  and  the  daises 
growing  out  of  his  grave.  He  can  laugh  in 
the  grim  cold  shadows,  a  ghost  not  fear- 
some, but  familiar  and  friendly,  with  greet- 
ings for  life,  or  its  questionings,' not  a  tear- 
ful good-bye. 

He  was  evidently,  for  the  time,  in  that 
territory  so  familiar  to  him — "the  desert 
of  Cough,  and  by  the  ghoul-haunted  wood- 
land of  Fever." 

1 1  gradually,  in  his  separation,  across  the 
83 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

sea,  became  impossible  for  him  to  think 
of  ever  returning  to  his  native  land.  The 
"Hills  of  Home"  were  to  be  always  Hills 
of  Dream. Tohave  made  the  venturewere 
to  play  with  certain  death,  were  to  beguilty 
of  something  like  an  act  of  suicide.  He 
schooled  his  heart  to  the  deprivation;  and 
wrote  to  Crockett,  from  Samoa: 
"I  shall  never  take  that  walk  by  the  Fish- 
er's Tryst  and  Glencorse.  I  shall  never  see 
Auld  Reekie.  I  shall  never  set  my  foot  a- 
gain  upon  the  heather.  Here  I  am  until  I 
die,  and  here  will  I  be  buried.  The  word  is 
out,  and  the  doom  written.  Or,  if  I  do  come, 
it  will  be  a  voyage  to  a  further  goal." 

Crockett's  words  of  dedication  to  him 
of  The  Stickit  Minister  had  moved  him 
very  deeply  to  remembrance.  He  wrote 
-from  the  depths  of  his  being  when  he  said: 

"It's  a  wrench  not  to  be  planted  in  Scot- 
land— that  I  can  never  deny — if  I  could 
onlybeburied  inthe  hills, under  the  heath- 
er, and  a  table  tombstone  like  the  martyrs, 

84 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

where  the  whaups  and  plovers  are  crying! 
.  .  .  Singular  that  I  should  fulfil  the  Scots 
destiny  throughout,  and  live  a  voluntary 
exile,  and  have  my  head  filled  with  the 
blessed  beastly  place  all  the  time!" 

In  this  respect  he  hit,  in  his  Master  of 
Ballantrae,  upon  the  contradiction  that  is 
within  the  love  of  a  Scotsman  for  home, 
where  he  makes  a  character  say  that  he 
has  been  guilty  of  two  errors,  in  that  he 

ever  left  his  native  city,  and  that  he 
ever  returned  to  it! 


CHAPTER  SIX 

A"CLACHAN"       LIKE 
S  wanston  was  certain  tohave 
its  "character."  And  Steven- 
son's note-taking  soul  was 
just  as  certain  to  single  him  out.  He  found 
in  Robert  Young  the  old  gardener  a  sub- 
ject worthy  of  his  pen. 

Whether  or  no  it  be  that  in  the  inmost 
nature  of  our  fellow  countrymen  there  is  a 
strong  spice  of  original  sin,  making  us  sus- 
pect a  truly  lineal  descent  from  the  prim- 
ary delver,  who  leaned  upon  his  spade  in 
Eden's  riggs  looking  around  vainly  for 
conversational  diversion,  until  he  sinned, 
and,  being  flung  out  to  perspire  a  wage,  be- 
came father  of  all  who  plant  cabbages,  and 
progenitor  of  Flower  Shows,  so  that  Adam 
is  still  a  common  and  favourite  name  in 
many  Scottish  families,  and  the  laws  of 
heredity  make  all  head-gardeners  Scots- 
men, one  thing  is  certain,  that  the  Scottish 
man  who  digs  and  plants  seems  always  to 

87 


THE     HILLS     OF      HOME 

speak  out  of  a  long,  ancient,  and  very  inti- 
mate acquaintance  with  the  beginnings  of 
things.  His  soul,  with  roots  of  early  know- 
ledge clinging  to  it,  and  much  rudimentary 
clay,  seems  to  have  been  turned  out  of  pot 
after  pot  through  multitudinous  seasons 
and  varieties  of  soil  carrying  each  experi- 
ence with  it 

These  characteristics  make  almost  any 
gardener,  likea  minister's  man,  a  deeply  in- 
teresting subject  of  study.  Stevenson  was, 
however,  wrong  in  thinking  that  Robert 
Young, the  gardener  at  Swanston,\vas  pro- 
bably the  last.  The  type  survives.  The  oc- 
cupation seems  to  produce  the  character. 

The  agricultural  farmer  is  generally 
more  full  of  life-thoughts  than  the  man 
whose  days  are  devoted  to  "beasts."  The 
growingof  green  things,  thesowing, plant- 
ing, reaping,  and  in-gathering  of  food-stuffs 
for  earth's  living  creatures  make  for  seas- 
ons of  quiet  reflective  thought.  While  they 
are  growing  in  the  fields  imagination  has 

88 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

its  times  of  brooding  and  enrichment.  It 
has,  besides,  uniqueopportunities  of  look- 
ing in  the  eye  of  Nature  and  interpreting 
what  is  hid  in  Nature's  heart. 

Especially  is  the  man  of  plants  a  man 
of  parts.  He  is  also  a  man  of  ruminating 
tendencies.  Indeed,  every  Scotsman  has 
a  reminiscent  mind.  The  past  is  always 
close  as  his  shadow  behind  him.  Seen 
through  the  grey  mist  of  a  Scottish  mem- 
ory, it  is  apt  to  become  transfigured  and 
transformed.  Little  things,  mean  enough 
to  the  eye  of  the  ordinary  Saxon  soul,  be- 
come ennobled.  The  casual  word  the 
Marquis  dropped  becomes  lengthened  in- 
to an  intimate  conversation;  the  wage  of 
fifty  years  since,  a  princely  income  com- 
pared with  the  pittance  which  secures  the 
serviceofto-day'sexperience.  The  forcing- 
frame  becomes  a  vinery  at  least,  and  the 
garden  of  to-day  a  wretched  thing  of 
squalid  plots,  alongside  of  the  great  de- 
mesne which  once  the  old  Adam  of  cab- 
89 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

bages  and  calceolaries  graced  with  his 
presence,  and  ruled  as  King  of  Spades. 
The  Scottish  workman,  the  more  he  loves 
his  master,  loves  the  more  to  impress  upon 
him  his  own  condescension  in  giving  his 
valuable  labour  to  him,  and  to  show  some- 
times, by  a  gesture  pregnant  with  mean- 
ing beyond  words,  how  well  within  the 
grip  of  his  own  hand  is  the  problem  of  his 
present  sphere.  He  may  show  this  by  the 
long  list  of  gardening  implements  which 
he  details  as  being  necessary  for  the  prop- 
er working  of  his  field  of  labour,  which 
has  Art  behind  it,  and  which  if  his  master 
purchase  he  will  be  apt  to  find  lying  un- 
used in  the  stick-shed  ere  a  month  go  by. 
Further,  his  quiet  hours  among  growing 
things  become  woven  together  into  a  kind 
of  fragrant  loneliness,  begetting  an  array 
of  solitary  thoughts  set  in  families,  maxims 
of  life  with  the  smack  of  proverbial  litera- 
ture about  them,  and  deeds  clothed  in  the 
characteristics  of  dignified  personality. 

90 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

Originality  seems  to  spring  from  the 
soil.  No  soul  passes  its  time  in  close  con- 
tact with  fields,  furrows,  and  forests,  with- 
out acquiring  its  peculiar  tang  in  thought, 
deed,  and  expression.  Poachers,  fishermen, 
and  shepherds  all  have  it.  But  gardeners 
exhale  it. 

It  was,  therefore,  a  very  precious  ex- 
perience that  Stevenson  had  through  his 
association  in  the  garden  at  Swanston 
with  old  Robert  Young.  And  it  is  well 
that  his  distemper  portrait  of  the  old  man 
was  not  allowed  to  lie  forgotten  in  the 
pages  of  the  College  Magazine,  which, 
after  four  public  appearances,  died  a  quiet 
death  from  defective  circulation.  One  can 
see  the  veteran  moving  about  among  his 
flower-plots,  under  the  quiet  hills,  and 
hear  his  gentle  brag  of  the  great  days  in 
Eden,  before  the  fall  into  the  meaner  con- 
descensions of  his  later  toils. 

His  appropriation  of  what  he  worked 
amongst  is  peculiar  to  his  class,  who  in- 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

variably  identify  themselves  with  whatso- 
ever they  take  in  hand.  I  have  known  a 
beadle,  who,  having  assured  himself,  tried 
hard  to  assure  the  ministerthat  the  people 
had  been  turning  out  better  on  Sundays 
since  he  began  to  ring  the  bell  and  carry 
up  the  books;  while  I  have  also  heard  as 
common  every-day  statements  from  the 
lips  of  the  "second  man  in  the  parish,"  re- 
miniscences of  "the  last  time  we  baptised 
a  child  here,"  or  "the  last  marriage  at 
which  we  officiated." 

The  mind  of  a  Scottish  gardener  of  the 
old  school  becomes  the  sheltering-place  of 
innumerable  quaint  notions,  which  seem 
to  walk  out  and  in,  as  if  from  stage  doors, 
at  the  most  unexpected  moments,  with  the 
mostunanticipated  remarks.  Iwell  remem- 
ber one  such  who  admired  the  sententious 
semi-theological  phraseology  of  the  min- 
ister's man.  The  latter  functionary  was  an 
authority  on  bees,  and  if  at  any  time  in  the 
parish,  during  the  swooning  summer,  a 

92 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

crowd  was  seen  gazing  open-mouthed  into 
a  tree,  a  passer-by  would  be  justified  in 
concluding  that  it  was  the  church-officer 
securing  a  swarm. 

"Do  you  know, "asked the  old  gardener 
of  me,  one  day  as  I  met  him  with  the 
forester — "Do  you  know  what  I  think, 
sometimes,  when  Tammas  goes  up  into 
the  pulpit  wi'  the  books,  and  gives  the 
Bible  a  clap  on  the  sma'  o'  the  back,  and 
takes  a  look  round  the  Kirk?  Well,"  he 
said,  perfectly  gravely,  and  with  honest 
intention,  "I  aye  think  a  short  discourse 
on  bees  would  be  very  acceptable!" 

Old  Robert  Young  of  Swanston,  who 
despised  with  infinite  pity  the  latter-day 
love  of  gewgaws,  and  tried  to  curb  the 
tendency  by  developing  troops  of  cauli- 
flowers and  cabbages  across  the  flower- 
beds, was  of  the  true  Scottish  stamp.  Two 
hundred  years  before  his  own  day,  he 
would  have  been  tramping  in  the  army  of 
the  Covenant,  or  discussing  when  the  con- 

93 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

venticle  was  over,  knotty  points  of  Scrip- 
ture and  questionable  interpretations  of 
abstruse  dogma;  for  his  life,  and  the  life  of 
his  kind,  was  nourished  on  daily  scraps 
that  had  dropped  as  if  from  tables  of  stone, 
out  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures. 

His  dreams  were  doubtless  filled  with 
shadows,  of  date  probably  not  much  later, 
as  a  general  rule,  than  the  Mosaic  Dis- 
pensation; and  yet  he  would  have  his  own 
views  on  the  crossing  of  Greenland,  which 
would  be  as  clear  as  those  which  he  held 
about  the  crossing  of  the  Red  Sea,  regard- 
ing which  he  probably  knew  just  as  much. 
He  would  have  his  own  opinion  also,  of 
the  character  and  conduct  of  the  patri- 
archs, and  would  be  apt  to  despise  Adam 
forlosing  a  good  situation  over  a  deprav- 
ed taste  in  apples.  His  Scotchness  would 
come  out  like  a  stone-crop  of  contradic- 
toriness,  which,  breaking  through  the 
close-trimmed  lawn  of  his  suavity,  just 
served  the  purpose  of  preventing  the  de- 

94 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

velopment  of  false  conceit  in  those  with 
whom  he  held  converse.  We  can  under- 
stand the  old  man  being  proud  of  his 
age,  yet  shaking  a  deprecating  head  over 
his  three-score  years  and  ten,  remember- 
ing how  they  were  "few  and  evil";  while, 
at  the  same  time,  he  would  resent  deeply 
the  application  of  the  adjective  "auld" 
to  himself.  Each  day  draws  a  picture 
of  its  passing,  over  his  heart,  his  work 
bending  him  to  its  own  shape;  the  earth 
he  serves  and  feeds  drawing  him  nearer  to 
her  bosom,  as  a  mother  draws  a  reluctant 
child  close  to  her  in  the  descending  shad- 
ows, till  with  a  quiet  surprise  at  the  liberty, 
and  astonished  at  the  careless  forgetful- 
ness  of  Providence,  he  is  blinded,  and 
gagged,  and  carried  off  by  death,  the  con- 
queror of  kings  and  gardeners.tothe  green 
places  far  beyond  the  limit  of  this  world 
of  changing  seasons  and  Flower-Shows. 
Yet  ever,  in  some  reproduction  of  his  kind, 
one  feels  as  though  he  had  really  come 

95 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

through  a  resurrection;  for,  so  long  as 
Scotland  lives,  the  old  Scotch  gardener 
can  never  die.  It  was,  therefore,  the  de- 
piction of  a  deathless  type  that  Stevenson 
gives  us  on  his  clever  page,  a  type  that 
still  goes  on,  pottering  among  greenhous- 
es and  cabbages,  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Hills  of  Home. 

Alongside  of  his  picture  of  the  gardener 
stands  that  of  the  other  native  character, 
John  Tod,  the  shepherd  of  the  Pentlands. 

The  Nature  love  of  the  early  world 
brought  down,  todwell  amongstthesheep- 
cotes  and  pastoral  glens,  the  gods  who 
loved  to  sit  by  shepherds'  fires,  and  share 
the  rude  repasts  in  huts  where  poor  men 
lay.  I  wonder  how  they  would  have  fared 
in  intercourse  with  some  of  our  Scottish 
herds,  sun-burned  and  wind-tanned,  and 
hoarse  with  shouting  to  their  dogs!  They 
live  in  a  world  of  their  own.  Knowledge, 
strong,  big,  and  solitary,  fearless  with  the 
fearlessness  as  of  a  deity's,  and  as  confid- 

96 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

ent  of  infallibleness,  springs  up  within  the 
heart  of  such  a  man;  for,  where  there  is 
none  to  contend  against  his  will,  and  where 
a  man  is  literally  lord  of  the  creatures,  is  it 
a  wonder  that  he  will  shout  his  opinions 
in  the  face  of  constable  and  parson,  and 
ban  upon  the  hillside,  unhesitatingly,  a 
contumacious  world?  The  man  of  sheep 
is  Nature's  general.  From  his  knoll  he 
takes  in  at  one  glance  the  arrangement  of 
a  whole  campaign,  sending  out  his  four- 
legged  scouts  and  wise  lieutenants,  to  turn 
the  flanks  of  scattered  droves  and  bands  of 
scared  and  scampering  sheep.  He  has  a 
code  of  his  own,  too — a  whistle,  a  wave  of 
the  hand,a  yelp,  or  aword  out  of  avocabul- 
ary  which  no  philologer  can  ever  run  to 
earth,  in  its  remote  sources  away  among 
nomad  pastoralities.  His  commands  toler- 
ate no  contradiction,  and  are  above  all 
question;  and  woe  to  the  canine  intellig- 
ence which  flickers,  even  for  a  second,  out 
of  the  line  of  perfect  understanding.  He  is 
97  G 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

apt  to  think  meanly,  you  may  be  sure,  of 
the  other  pastor  in  the  parish  who  does  his 
shouting  only  on  one  day  in  the  week 
when  the  John  Tods  of  the  parish  are 
silent;  and  does  it,  too,  not  on  the  hillside, 
but  in  the  fold;  flinging  out  his  commands 
not  to  sheep-dogs  but  to  the  flock  direct, 
just  as  much  to  their  confusion  and  bewild- 
erment as  would  ensue  were  the  same 
method  applied  by  John  Tod  himself!  I 
can  hear  him  saying,  with  a  snort,  on  a 
wind-swept  grassy  headland  in  the  hills, 
"What  wonder  though  his  flock  scatter 
with  such  a  herding,  when  the  pastor  him- 
self is  sheep-dog  and  shepherd,  and  there 
isn't  a  well-trained  collie  among  them." 

The  town  man  laughs  to  see  the  big 
hodden-clad  son  of  the  hills  stupefied  a- 
mong  swift  cars  and  motor  bicycles,  not 
able  to  find  his  way,  without  multitudinous 
bumpings,  along  broad  crowded  pave- 
ments. Yet  let  him  loose  in  the  trackless 
wild,  in  the  teeth  of  snow  and  hail  that 

98 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

obliterate  all  things  —  see  him  in  the 
swamp,  or  on  the  face  of  a  swooning  cliff, 
after  a  lamb  that  has  wandered,  or  a  sheep 
that  has  been  lost,  and  you  see  the  noblest 
bit  of  fearlessness  and  indefatigable  assid- 
uity indomitable,  thatyour  mortal  eyes  will 
ever  look  upon  this  side  of  the  stars.  He 
fears  no  human  face;  no  title  and  no  rank 
have  consideration  from  him  alongside 
of  the  interests  of  his  flock.  No  mother's 
passion  for  her  child,  no  love  of  patriot 
for  his  fatherland,  ever  could  eclipse  the 
strenuous  devotion  to  solitary  duty,  the 
blazing  tempestuous  courage  of  the  shep- 
herd, child  of  the  glens  among  the 
"Hills  of  Home." 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 

IT  IS  REMARKABLE  THAT 
he  who  knew  so  much  of  human 
character  did  not,  in  his  work,  make 
that  use  which  might  have  been  ex- 
pected of  the  complex  nature  of  woman- 
hood. It  is  true  that  this,  and  even  more, 
has  been  said  so  often,  that  it  has  been 
accepted  without  question  that  Stevenson 
could  not  draw  women  at  all.  That  he  was 
himself  conscious  of  this,  we  can  see  from 
his  letter  to  Marcel Schwob  where  hesays: 
"  Vous  nedetestez  pas  alorsmes  bonnes 
femmes?  Moi,  je  les  deteste.  I  have  never 
pleased  myself  with  any  women  of  mine 
save  two  character  parts,  one  of  only  a 
few  lines — the  Countess  of  Rosen,  and 
Madame    Desprez  in   the    Treasure   of 
Franchard" 

Nevertheless,  it  is  also  true  that  one  has 
only  to  read  his  letters  to  see  how  he  could 
interest  women  in  him — a  proof  that  he 
was  not  without  the  power  of  being  inter- 
101 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

ested  in  them.  Further,  I  think  it  is  quite 
plain  that  he  was  not  seized  by  the  master 
passion  until  late  in  his  career,  when  he 
met  the  woman  who  possessed  him  to  the 
end.  Besides,  he  wrote  many  of  his  stories 
forthestory'ssake,studyingcertain  actions 
of  men,  who  were  impulse-driven  byother 
motives  and  purposes  than  those  of  sex. 
They  are  the  adventures  of  men  banished 
and  driven  from  home,  not  in  consequence 
of  contact  with  feminine  intrigue,  but  by 
the  greed  of  gold,  by  outre  passion,  and 
by  the  love  of  adventure.  Yet  when  pro- 
bably impelled  to  do  so  by  the  fact  of 
grumbling  criticism,  he  does  bring  in  the 
feminine  legend,  I  do  not  think  that  any 
fair-minded  critic  could  say  that  he  fails. 
Besides,  sex  problems  are  not  absolutely 
necessary  in  romance.  Although  the  tend- 
er passion  has  made  for  more  romantic 
situation  than  anything  else  in  the  world, 
yet  there  have  been  other  impulses  which 
have  affected  the  relations  of  individuals 

102 


THE     HILLS     OF      HOME 

and  communities  sufficiently  to  create 
positions  of  intense  emotional  interest. 
The  conflict  of  a  heart  against  itself,  of  a 
soul  against  its  destiny,  are  all  sufficiently 
moving  and  absorbing  to  fill  a  canvas. 
Stevenson's  mental  interests  were  in  re- 
ality, at  heart,  historical  and  psychological. 
He  concentrates  in  Kidnapped  upon  the 
mystery  of  the  Appin  murder  rather  than 
on  the  slow  fire  of  David  Balfour's  love. 
It  is  not,  in  fact,  primarily  a  love  story  at 
all,  but  a  study  of  the  character  of  Alan 
Breck  the  Highlander  in  contrast  to  David 
Balfour  the  slow-witted  Lowlander.  So 
with  the  majority  of  his  tales.  His  women 
were  perhaps  mostly  in  his  story  as  pivots, 
or  in  order  that  they  might  do  something 
for  the  men  that  are  in  it.  This  was  quite 
natural,  from  the  position  of  women  in  a 
typical  Scottish  household,  and  from  the 
semi-Hebraic  Biblical  point  of  view  of  old 
Thomas  Stevenson  the  novelist's  father. 
The  women  of  his  youth  who  had  a  sense 
103 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

of  enfranchisement  were  apt  to  be  looked 
upon  as  eccentrics  by  the  staid  standards 
of  Edinburgh  society.  It  was  still  the  day 
of  the  indoors  woman.  Models  for  Mrs 
Weir  of  Hermiston  were  not  difficult  to 
find — the  peevish  textifier,  confined  to 
her  sofa,  a  kind  of  drawing-room  martyr 
with  a  "tidy"  on  her.  The  fact  is,  that,  for 
the  purposes  of  Stevenson's  story,  the 
women  had  just  to  be  as  he  made  them. 
I  am  not  sure  that  his  own  estimate  in  his 
letter  to  Schwob  in  regard  to  Countess 
Rosen  is  correct,  for  it  is  as  difficult  for  a 
man  to  make  a  fair  estimate  of  the  off- 
spring of  his  mind  as  of  that  of  his  body. 
Each  reader  is  free  to  choose  his  own 
heroine  to  fall  in  love  with.  Stevenson  had 
to  depict  the  women  he  knew  as  he  saw 
them,  not  as  we  do.  His  women  were 
women  of  whim.  Their  angels  do  tweak 
the  ear  of  their  purpose  sometimes. 

In  Weir  of  Hermiston,  however,  that 
masterly  torso,  bearing  about  its  lines  the 

104 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

marks  and  imprint  of  great  art,  and  in- 
sight, the  two  Kirsties  stand  out  limned 
clearly  and  possessingly.  It  is  the  fashion 
to  concentrate  praise  on  Kirstie  the  elder, 
but  the  picture  of  her  niece  is  one  of  the 
masterpieces  of  literary  portraiture  of  a 
girl's  soul.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know 
a  truer  picture,  with  a  deeper  inner  know- 
ledge of  feminine  human  nature  than  it 
shows.  One  cannot,  at  the  same  time,  for- 
get the  tragedy  of  the  midnight  scene  of 
the  heart-wrung  passionateness  of  the 
elder  Kirstie's  pleading. 

It  is  also  the  vogue  to  scorn  Stevenson's 
picture  of  Catriona,  calling  her  "a  boy 
dressed  in  girl's  clothes."  This  cry,  re- 
peated by  the  multitude  that  so  readily 
take  their  opinions  from  any  body's  printed 
page,  has  been  attempted  to  be  met  by  the 
supposition  that  those  critics  have  never 
been  in  love.  It  is,  however,  far  clearer 
that  they  do  not  understand  the  character 
of  a  Highland  woman.  Catriona  is  not  a 
105 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

mere  dairy-maid,  but  a  personality  instinct 
with  the  feelings  of  a  Highland  lady.  Her 
fidelity,  her  patience,  her  devotion,  the 
constancy  of  her  affection,  win  the  heart 
even  of  the  reader  who  may  have  pre- 
possessions against  her,  as  gently  and  as 
surely  as  in  real  life  she  would  have  done. 
Nor  is  the  feminine  naive  gravity  of  Miss 
Barbara  Grant  in  the  same  story  a  creation 
in  fustian  and  sawdust,  but  feminine  to  her 
finger-tips,  and  true  to  her  class.  Olalla 
too — what  a  thing  of  passion  she  is!  While, 
as  for  a  simple  Scottish  girl — what  a 
glimpse  is  that  of  "the  nameless  lass"who 
helps  Alan  Breck  and  David  Balfour  to 
get  across  the  Forth,  in  their  flight.  In  a 
touch  or  two  she  seizes  our  visual  imagin- 
ation and  vanishes.  One  can  hearthe  flutter 
of  her  skirts  as  she  escapes  from  our 
presence. 

His  highest  reach  in  his  womenkind 
was  undoubtedly  Kirstie  Elliot,  senior, 
the  true  Scottish  muirland  woman,  with  a 

1 06 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

lash-snap  in  the  whip  of  her  words. 
Kirstie  the  younger  is  also  a  true  daughter 
of  the  H  ills  of  Home,  so  different  from  her 
aunt — quite  evidently  a  careful  study  of 
genuine  womanhood.  Of  course  she  has  no 
depth  in  her — she  is  only  a  sunny  pool  rip- 
pled by  any  passing  breath,  shadowed  by 
the  wind  of  any  passing  bird. 

If  in  any  way  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
failed  or  seemed  to  fail  in  his  depiction  of 
womanhood,  it  was  not  from  want  of 
knowledge  of  the  sex,  for  he  was  passion- 
ate, and  he  knew  passionate  secrets. 
Speaking,  in  his  letters,  of  the  Elgin 
Marbles,  he  says,  "If  one  could  love  a 
woman  like  that  once,  see  her  once  grow 
pale  with  passion,  and  once  wring  your 
lips  out  upon  hers,  would  it  not  be  a  small 
thing  to  die." 

It  is  so  difficult  in  ordinary  life  to 
fathom  the  sunsmit,  shadow-chased  per- 
sonality of  woman,  so  ready  for  leal  self- 
abnegation,  so  prompt  to  do  and  dare  for 
107 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

sweet  love's  sake,  yet  so  often  in  the  grip 
of  fickle  whim  and  passing  mood,  that 
only  a  great  artist  can  catch  and  fix  the 
lines  of  a  true  portrait;  sometimes,  indeed, 
the  greatest  artist  only  by  suggestion 
settles  the  eluding  sylphlike  personality 
upon  the  canvas  of  imagination.  Yet  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  such  feminine 
characters  as  Stevenson  has  touched  and 
quickened  have  not  been  unknown  to 
many  through  whose  lives  they  have  sent 
their  lasting  influence;  and  it  must  just  be 
taken  for  granted  that  their  kind  have 
passed  by  the  grumblers. 

His  verse,  especially  his  Scottish  verse, 
is  not  his  greatest  creation.  He  would  not 
himself  have  claimed  it  to  be  so.  His 
models  are  rather  obvious. 

From  what  he  himself  says  he  felt  very 
much  the  influence  of  hapless  Robert  Fer- 
gusson.  Sometimes,  indeed,  he  thought 
he  was  a  reincarnation  of  that  poet.  It  was 
natural  that  the  fate  of  that  young  Edin- 

108 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

burgh  man,  whose  health  and  reason 
were  shattered  by  Bohemian  dissipations, 
should  have  appealed  very  powerfully  to 
Stevenson  who  moved  through  a  Bo- 
hemian world  also.  Superlative  though 
the  poems  of  Burns  be,  it  is  undeniable 
that  his  chequered  career  intensely  deep- 
ened Stevenson's  interest  in  his  life. 
Stevenson's  verse  utterance  follows  in  all 
details  the  Scottish  traditions.  He  does 
not,  in  fact,  make  in  them  a  new  contrib- 
ution to  the  stock,  although  his  personal 
voice  and  view  are  present.  What  is 
known  as  the  Habbie  Simson  stave,  a 
form  called  by  Allan  Ramsay  the  "stand- 
ard Habbie,"  and  which  was  especially 
used  in  Scottish  poetry  for  epistolary 
verse,  was  for  the  most  part  his  medium 
of  expression.  This  measure  itself  had  a 
history  of  its  own.  It  was  troubadour  in 
origin,  and  from  the  thirteenth  to  the 
fifteenth  century  was  in  use  in  England. 
In  the  eleventh  century  Count  William  of 
109 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

Poitiers  wrote  in  it.  From  courtly  singers 
it  passed  out,  however,  to  be  a  favourite 
measure  of  singers  in  courts  and  alleys, 
and  after  a  most  varied  history  it  became, 
after  1640,  the  model  of  Scottish  verse, 
until  Burns  made  it  practically  the  metri- 
cal uniform  of  his  muse.  This  was  the 
verse  used  by  Stevenson  in  A  Loivden 
Sabbath  Morn,  in  which  he  laughs,  not  a 
sardonic  laugh,  but  a  genial  sympathetic 
appreciation  of  the  humours  of  the  relig- 
ious habits  of  his  native  land  and  fellow- 
countrymen.  In  A  Lowden  Sabbath  Morn 
he  employs  the  same  arts  of  the  master- 
craftsman,  with  choice  of  vocalic  effect 
and  picturesque  presentment  of  fact  and 
character,  as  in  his  Essays. 

The  clinkum-clank  o'  Sabbath  bells 
Noo  to  the  hoastin'  rookery  swells, 
Noo  faintin'  laigh  in  shady  dells, 

Sounds  far  and  near, 
An'  through  the  simmer  kintry  tells 

Its  tale  o'  cheer. 

True  to  the  life  is  the  picture  of  the  ham- 

110 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

let  gathering  for  worship  in  the  church- 
yard, where 

The  prentit  stanes  that  mark  the  deid, 
Wi'  lengthened  lip,  the  sarious  read; 
Syne  wag  a  moraleesin'  held, 

An'  then  and  there 
Their  hirplin'  practice  an'  their  creed 

Try  hard  to  square. 

Inside  the  sacred  building  the  minister 
expounds  to  the  drowsing  parish,  redolent 
of  peppermint  and  southernwood,  the  sins 
of  others,  and  especially 

the  fau'ts  o'  ither  kirks, 
An'  shaws  the  best  o'  them 
No  muckle  better  than  mere  Turks, 
When  a's  confessed  o'  them. 

Bethankit!  what  a  bonny  creed! 

What  mair  would  ony  Christian  need? — 

The  braw  words  rumm'le  ower  his  heid, 

Nor  steer  the  sleeper; 
And  in  their  restin'  graves,  the  deid 

Sleep  aye  the  deeper. 

In  somewhat  more  of  the  spirit  of  Satire 
he  looks  through  the  eye  of  a  Scotsman 
returned  from  abroad  with  the  hunger  for 
the  old  doctrines  of  his  youth,  after  the 
in 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

spiritual  unsettlement  of  the  landsthrough 
which  he  has  been  wandering.  He  lays  a 
finger  on  the  weaknesses  of  his  people. 
Scots  folks  have  always  been  fond  of  their 
own  way  in  religious  forms  of  worship. 
Each  individual  likes  to  have  his  own  kind 
of  faith.  When  an  Englishman  quarrels 
with  another  E  nglishman  he  sulks  or  com- 
mits a  breach  of  the  peace,  but  when  a 
Scotsman  has  a  quarrel  he  goes  off  and 
founds  a  sect.  No  matter  on  how  slight  a 
ground  the  quarrel  occurs,  say,  from  the 
use  of  a  harmonium  to  the  singing  of  a 
hymn,  or  the  taking  up  of  a  collection,  he 
will  always  find  plenty  to  follow  him,  till 
there  be  enough  to  have  amongst  them 
another  schism,  or  two.  Stevenson  hits  this 
off  with  a  twinkling  eye,  and  his  tongue  in 
his  cheek,  while  he  also  touches  lightly  on 
the  queer  combination  of  spirituality  and 
spirituosity  which  was  once  the  note  of 
Scottish  faith. 

Despite  the  innovations  of  hymn  books 

I  12 


THE    HILLS      OF     HOME 

and  the  gesturing  manners  of  the  new 
precentor,  the  returned  emigrant  foundhis 
old  satisfaction  from  thegeneral  sweeping 
condemnation  of  everything  and  every- 
body which  formed  the  staple  of  the  prea- 
cher's word. 

I  owned,  wi'  gratitude  and  wonder, 
He  was  a  pleisure  to  sit  under. 

His  Scottish  poems  give  clear  impres- 
sions of  Nature,  religion,  and  life  in  his 
native  land.  For  example,  how  Horatian 
is  the  spirit  of  this  picture. 

Frae  nirly,  nippin',  Eas'  Ian'  breeze, 
Frae  Norlan'  snaw,  an'  haar  o'  seas, 
Weel  happit  in  your  gairden  trees, 

A  bonny  bit, 
Atween  the  muckle  Pentland's  knees, 

Secure  ye  sit. . . . 

Frae  the  high  hills  the  curlew  ca's; 
The  sheep  gang  baaing  by  the  wa's; 
Or  whiles  a  clan  o'  roosty  craws 

Cangle  thegether; 
The  wild  bees  seek  the  gairden  raws, 

Weariet  wi'  heather. 

Or  in  the  gloamin'  douce  an'  gray 
The  sweet-throat  mavis  tunes  her  lay; 

113  H 


THE      HILLS     OF     HOME 

The  herd  comes  linkin'  doun  the  brae; 

An'  by  degrees 
The  muckle  siller  mune  maks  way 

Amang  the  trees. 

The  last  verse  especially  is  a  beautiful 
reminiscence  of  the  "  Hills  of  Home." 


CHAPTER  EIGHT 

WHERE  DID  HE  GET 
the  charm  of  his  writing, 
with  its  incisive  phrase,  its 
necromantic  glamour,  its 
vistas  of  stillness  and  charm,  with  episodes 
that  hush  the  heart  as  though  wegetin  that 
moment  a  glimpse  into  the  bacchanal- 
haunted  glades,  where  Dionysus  leads  the 
king,  in  the  palinode  of  Euripides? 

The  man  himself  did  not  know.  When 
he  tries  to  tell  us,  he  attempts  what  is  be- 
yond the  reach  of  his  own  real  knowledge. 
He  looked  back  on  the  nearest  stepping- 
stones  which  only  had  led  him  over  thelast 
brook  he  had  crossed  in  his  pilgrimage;  but 
he  forgot  the  heart-seeking  voice  of  the 
bugles  in  the  dark,  up  on  the  magic  Castle- 
rock,  encrusted  with  memories  of  the  old 
struggles  of  the  makers  of  Edinburgh,  the 
haunting  shadows  of  the  midnight  streets, 
the  lone  peaks  that  had  looked  at  him 
through  the  grey  mist,  the  running  waters 
"5 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

in  the  hills  that  had  broken  in  upon  him  in 
the  wakeful  intervals  of  his  sleeping,  the  cry 
of  the  winds  on  the  grey  crags  of  Kirk  Yet- 
ton,  the  honeysuckle  and  the  rose-leaves 
tost  at  his  feet  over  the  dyke  of  the  garden 
at  Swanston.  Ay,  and  the  shadows  of  the 
fathers  of  his  race,  who  had  struggled  in 
border  foray  and  in  conflicts  with  the  sea. 
Stevenson  was,  and  still  is,  largely  and 
widely  misunderstood  by  certain  stupid 
people  of  whom  and  of  whose  kind  there 
are  always  plenty  in  the  world  ready  to 
take  an  author  absolutely  literally  at  his 
word;  and  so,  reading  Stevenson's  state- 
ments as  to  the  books  and  authors  that  in- 
fluenced him  in  the  reminiscences  of  his 
wide  reading,  are  prematurely  ready  to  ac- 
cept him  as  having  been,  for  the  mostpart, 
as  he  puts  it,  "the  sedulous  ape  to  Hazlitt, 
to  Lamb,  to  Wordsworth,  to  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  to  Defoe,  to  Hawthorne,  to  Mon- 
taigne, to  Baudelaire,  and  to  Obermann." 
What  he  meant  by  using  that  phrase  is  eas- 

116 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

ily  understood  by  every  reflective  reader, 
and  especially  by  every  man  who  writes, 
and  knows  his  business.  He  was  sharpen- 
ing his  sword.  Every  artist  has  to  begin, 
in  a  sense,  as  a  copyist,  in  order  to  learn 
the  use  of  his  tools.  No  man  becomes  a 
master  by  hitting  out  in  the  dark. 

We  can  perceive  and  appreciate  the 
"sedulous  ape"  business,  for  example,  in 
such  a  thing  as  his  analysis  of  the  contra- 
dictories in  man,  where  there  is  proof  that 
the  shadows  of  Bacon  and  Pascal  stood 
each  at  the  writer's  shoulder  while  he 
wrote: 

"What  a  monstrous  spectre  is  this  man, 
the  disease  of  the  agglutinated  dust,  lift- 
ing alternate  feet  or  lying  drugged  with 
slumber;  killing,  feeding,  growing,  bring- 
ing forth  small  copies  of  himself;  grown 
upon  with  hair  like  grass,  fitted  with  eyes 
that  move  and  glitter  in  his  face;  a  thing 
to  set  children  screaming! — and  yet,  look- 
ed at  nearlier,  known  as  his  fellows  knows 
117 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

him,  how  surprising  are  his  attributes!" 
And  so  forth,  in  similar  strain. 

That  he  owed  something  also  to  Jean- 
Jacques  Rousseau  is  manifest,  from  the 
following,  taken  at  random  from  the  Con- 
fessions: 

"There  is  something  in  walking  that 
stirs  and  quickens  my  ideas;  I  can  hardly 
think  when  I  remain  in  one  place;  my 
body  must  be  on  the  move  to  set  my  mind 
agoing.  The  sight  of  the  country,  the  suc- 
cession of  agreeable  views,  the  open  air, 
the  big  appetite,  the  good  health  I  win  by 
walking,  the  freedom  of  the  Inn,  the  ab- 
sence of  everything  that  makes  me  feel 
my  dependence,  everything  that  reminds 
me  of  my  situation,  all  this  loosens  my  soul, 
gives  me  a  greater  audacity  to  think, 
throws  me,  so  to  speak,  into  the  immens- 
ity of  beings,  to  combine  them,  to  choose 
them,  to  appropriate  them  at  my  will,  with- 
out fear  or  constraint.  I  dispose  of  all  Nat- 
ure like  a  master." 

118 


THE      HILLS     OF     HOME 

Or  again,  take  this: 

"I  lay  down  voluptuously  on  the  ledge 
of  a  sort  of  recess  or  false  door  let  into  the 
wall  of  a  terrace. ...  A  nightingale  was 
just  overhead,  and  I  went  to  sleep  to  its 
song;  my  slumbers  were  sweet,  my  awak- 
ening was  still  more  so.  It  was  broad  day- 
light; my  eyes,  on  opening,  saw  the  water, 
the  verdure,  a  wonderful  landscape.  I  got 
up  and  shook  myself;  I  felt  hungry;  I 
wended  my  way  gaily  to  the  town,  re- 
solved to  spend  two  pieces  of  six  blanks, 
that  I  still  had  left,  in  a  good  breakfast." 

One  might  almost  feel  as  though  Stev- 
enson's voice  were  here  speaking,  as 
though  his  genius  had  made  response  to 
the  French  influence  of  old  treaty  connec- 
tions with  the  Southern  land  and  its  sunny 
champaigns,  verdant,  and  gay  with  laugh- 
ter and  with  songs  of  nightingales  and 
happy  wayfarers. 

In  fact,  words  were  his  comrades.  He 
carried  in  his  pockets  one  book  to  read  in, 
119 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

and  another  to  write  in,  writing  not  for 
publication,  but  as  a  child  would  learn  to 
walk,  by  exercise  of  its  limbs.  Sometimes, 
thus,  he  would  catch  a  thought  worth 
keeping,  as  one  might  hap  upon  an  escap- 
ing angel.  His  experience  was  indeed  just 
the  same  as  that  of  any  imaginative  boy 
with  the  lure  of  Literature  before  him. 

In  his  correspondence  he  once  declared 
that  he  had  moulded  his  style  on  theweird 
pages  of  Patrick  Walker,  the  grim  cove- 
nanting pedlar.  I  am  certain  this  meant 
little  more,  however,  than  just  that  the 
"far  ben"  glimpses  of  the  recesses  of  the 
human  soul  with  which  Walker's  pages 
abound  had  given  hush  to  his  own  fancies, 
and  made  them  stand  a-tip-toe  often,  with 
finger  on  their  lips.  He  was,  indeed,  so 
sensitively  responsive  to  directness  and 
strength  of  utterance  that  he  was  apt  to 
feel  that  he  owed  everything  to  the  last 
vivid  thing  he  read;  and,  doubtless,  for  a 
time  the  ripple  of  the  last  stone  that  fell  in- 

120 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

to  the  pool  of  his  consciousness  kept  mov- 
ing slowly  onward  to  the  shore.  Almost 
fromhis  earliest  he  was,ashesaid,astudent 
of  methods  of  expression;  also,  he  read 
everything,  everywhere,  anyhow. 

One  can  easily  trace  also  the  vivid  in- 
fluence of  Walt  Whitman — the  astonish- 
ing naked  man  of  modern  literature. 

Besides,  what  is  originality,  but  the 
individual's  own  interpretation  of  what, 
after  all,  must  be,  at  this  time  of  day,  the 
great  universal  common-places  of  life  and 
thought? 

The  more  widely  a  wise  and  clever  man 
reads,  the  more  he  will  interpret  his  read- 
ing by  the  varied  and  ever-varying  library 
of  Humanity.  In  the  wide  world  he  finds 
his  true  commentary.  The  heart  of  man  is 
his  whetstone. 

Stevenson  did  not  really  need  other 
men's  mirrors.  He  needed  no  second-hand 
inspiration.  He  had  skylights  of  his  own. 
He  did  not  require  to  pay  ferrymen's  fees; 
121 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

he  could  be  his  own  steersman,  sailing  the 
wide  seas  of  imagination.  He  knew  the 
secrets  of  life  and  death  intimately — they 
haunt  a  Bohemian  world.  The  man  who 
lives  in  Bohemia  is  apt  neither  to  take 
death  so  seriously  as  that  grim  visitant 
expects,  nor  even  mirth  so  lightly  as  men 
look  for.  So  Stevenson  is  a  man  earnest — 
inevitably  so,seeingashe  does,  how  severe 
is  the  heart  of  things;  and  yet  he  smiles, 
for  he  has  the  magician's  gift.and  can  work 
a  transformation  scene.  He  can  afford  quiet 
laughter  to  illumine  his  stage,  though,  at 
the  same  time,  making  one  feel,  knowing 
what  one  does  know,  that  he  is  sometimes 
playing  jigs  to  keep  up  our  hearts  during 
the  acting  of  the  tragedy.  He  was,  in  fact, 
an  instinctive  rebel  against  conventions, 
both  of  joy  and  sorrow.  He  was  a  born 
actor,  for  he  was  "of  imagination  all  com- 
pact." 

Now,  each  man  can  breathe  his  own 
feeling  even  into  another  man's  notes,  so 

122 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

long  as  he  play  on  his  own  fiddle.  Ill-trained 
and  ill-tempered  critics,  with  narrow  out- 
look and  vague  experience  of  life  and  liter- 
ature, are  prone  to  confuse  issues  in  such 
a  matter.  It  is  true,  for  example,  that  the 
mystery  story  may  appeal  to  the  creative 
imagination  sufficiently  to  beget  another 
of  its  own  kind.  One  would  expect,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  that  this  should  be  so. 
But  it  does  not  at  all  follow  that  Edgar 
Allan  Poe  is  the  father  of  Stevenson.  He 
himself  declared  in  writing  Treasure  Is- 
land that  he  was  to  write  a  pirate  story 
"in  the  old  way."  But,  just  as  with  a  singer 
using  a  set  form  of  notes,  he  gives  it,  even 
in  an  exercise,  the  turn  of  his  own  voice. 
After  all,  the  possible  situations  of  diffic- 
ulty in  human  experience  have  their  limit- 
ationsjand  it  is,  indeed,  amazing  that  such 
variety  can  be  built  up  out  of  a  vocabulary 
which,  even  at  its  widest,  has  its  restric- 
tions. 

The  craze  for  crude  comparisons  in 
123 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

present-day  criticism  is  often  only  a  mode 
of  cheap  clap-trap.  Nothing  was  cheaper 
for  example,  than  to  call  Stevenson  the 
modern  Scott,  the  modern  Burns,  the  Scot- 
tish Addison  or  Steele.  Scott  and  Burns 
are  the  crest  of  their  wave.  They  are  alone. 
They  maygive,bythe  ictus  of  their  genius, 
impetus  to  otherminds,  buttheirlion-skins 
are  not  transferable,  any  more  than  their 
personalities.  Besides,  the  fact  that  a  man 
writes  about Elsinoreor  the  Jacobites  does 
not  justify  a  comparison  with  Hamlet  or 
Waverley,  The  true  comparison  by  a  true 
critic  is  the  comparison  of  a  man  with  his 
own  previous  work,  which  may  be  his  best 
or  his  worst.  All  the  same,  of  course,  no 
man  living  or  writing  in  the  world  of  im- 
aginative creation  can  help  being  splashed 
a  little  with  some  spray  from  theperennial 
fountains  of  Montaigne,  Pepys,  Scott, 
Balzac,  Dumas,  and  the  rest. 

For  those  who  believe  in  portents,  such 
can  be  found  in  Stevenson's  record.  The 

124 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

legend  of  a  laughter-chased  shadow  as  a 
remote  Celtic  progenitor  was  his.  We  hear 
its  echo  often.  Even  in  his  earliest  child- 
hood he  was  brought  in  a  remarkable  and 
dangerous  way  into  contact  with  the  Bo- 
hemian world,  through  the  habits  of  his 
first  nurse.  She  was  unfortunately  much 
addicted  to  alcohol,  and  was  discovered  in 
a  public-house  very  drunk,  while  the  tiny 
Robert  Louis,  tied  up  like  a  parcel,  lay  on 
a  shelf  behind  the  bar.  A  portrait  of  the 
young  adventurer  among  the  pewters 
would  be  a  striking  frontispiece!  Another 
proved  as  perilous  an  experiment;  and 
then  "Cummy,"  Alison  Cunningham,  was 
secured,  a  precious  and  inestimable  poss- 
ession. Hertales  of  weirdry,her  ballad  lore, 
and,  above  all,  her  rich  Scottish  vocabul- 
ary, had  very  probably  much  more  to  do 
with  the  moulding  of  his  world  of  praise 
than  he  was  aware  of.  I  believe,  in  fact, 
that  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  he  owed  for 
style,  thought,  and  matter  to  "Cummy" 
125 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

his  old  nurse,  who  must  have  fed  his  young 
imagination  with  many  a  draught  drawn 
from  the  deep  well  of  her  remembrance, 
far  more  than  his  fancied  indebtedness  to 
Hazlitt  and  the  rest.  The  relationship  be- 
tween her  and  him  was  one  of  intense  love. 
Her  kindness  and  devotion  to  him  must 
have  been  deep  as  that  of  a  mother.  What 
he  wrote  to  her  he  meant,  when  he  said: 

"Do  not  suppose  that  I  shall  ever  forget 
those  long,  bitter  nights,  when  I  coughed 
and  coughed  and  was  so  unhappy,  and  you 
were  so  patient  and  loving  with  a  poor,sick 
child.  Indeed,  Cummy,  I  wish  I  might  be- 
come a  man  worth  talking  of,  if  it  were  only 
that  you  should  not  have  thrown  away 
your  pains." 

His  imagination  had  a  very  weird  side 
to  it,  which  might  partly  be  traced  to  the 
influence  of  thisdeardelightful  old  woman. 
"Do  you  know,"  he  writes  of  one  of  his 
tales,  "this  storyof  mine  is  horrible;  I  only 
work  at  it  by  fits  and  starts,  because  I  feel 

126 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

as  if  itwere  a  sort  of  crime  against  human- 
ity— it  is  so  cruel."  Of  course  it  cannot  be 
denied  that,  at  the  back  of  the  Scottish 
genius,  right  up  against  the  humour  of  the 
race,  there  is  a  chord  that  vibrates  to  the 
sardonic  grim  key-note  of  Tophet. 

From  the  earliest  time  Literature  had 
him  on  her  leash.  It  was  with  a  sorely  dis- 
appointed heart  that  his  father  saw  his  son 
turn  away  resolutely  from  the  profession  of 
engineering,  which  was  the  tradition  of 
their  family.  He  made  a  struggle  to  obey 
his  father's  will  in  this  respect,  playing  at 
engineering  at  Anstruther  and  at  Wick, 
by  day  giving  some  kind  of  attention  to  his 
father's  work,  but  by  night,  in  the  silence 
of  his  room,  touching  what  to  him  was  real 
life.modulatingandmouldinghis  thoughts, 
and  trying  to  master  the  art  of  expressing 
them. 

He  loved  the  outdoor  life,  and  so  per- 
haps it  was  not  only  to  oblige  his  father 
that  he  entered  into  engineering,  with  a 
127 


THE     HILLS     OF      HOME 

hearty  dislike  for  it  It  was  not  unprofit- 
able for  his  future,  for  it  gave  him  a  living 
experience  among  men  and  ships,  with  a 
romantic  acquaintance  with  quays,  and 
harbours,  and  the  mystery  of  the  sea, 
which  stood  him  in  good  stead,  and  was 
extremely  creative  in  relation  to  his  later 
work.  In  a  large  degree,  also,  it  suited  his 
Bohemian  tastes  and  love  for  composite 
companionships. 

The  hard  recognition  that  engineering 
was  impossible  as  a  profession  for  him 
having  been  faced,  he  read,  or  was  sup- 
posed to  read,  for  the  Scottish  Bar.  Be- 
hind all  things,  however,  the  shadow  of 
Literature,  with  a  star  upon  its  brow,  still 
beckoned  him  to  follow. 

His  Bohemian  companionships,  the  mis- 
cellaneous friendships  and  acquaintances 
which  he  loved  to  make,  especially  among 
the  common  people,  were  strongly  creat- 
ive influences  in  his  life  and  thought.  He 
is,  indeed,  essentially,  and  very  largely 

128 


<  J*  £ 

tl    2  c 
O.  s'-S 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

through  this,  the  voice  of  the  Scottish 
mind,  as  it  looks  on  the  stern  and  "paw- 
kie"  side  of  things,  almost  in  the  same 
glance.  The  Scottish  peasant  lends  him- 
self very  much  to  such  opportunities  of 
friendship  and  intimacy  with  his  super- 
iors, and  one  can  see  how  both  they  and 
Stevenson  would  enjoy  the  occasion.  A 
glimpse  of  that  kind  of  thing  emerges  in 
one  of  his  letters  to  Mrs  Sitwell. 

He  tells  howa  shower  of  raindrove  him 
for  shelter  into  a  tumble-down  steading, 
where  he  fell  into  conversation  with  "a 
labourer  cleaning  a  byre."  In  any  other 
country  he  would  have  fought  shy  of  com- 
munion with  a  man  of  that  class,  but  re- 
membering that  he  was  in  Scotland  he 
plunged  into  a  discussion  upon  Education 
and  Politics.  The  clear  mother- wit  of  the 
Scottish  peasant  quickened  the  mind  of 
the  man  of  culture,  by  its  clear-visioned 
perception  of  what  had  perplexed  him  in 
the  state  of  the  peasant  people  of  Suffolk. 
129  i 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

And,  further,  he  gave  the  literary  student 
of  men  and  manners  an  encouraging  up- 
lift, when  he  declared  that  he  could  not 
understand  how  any  man  who  had  a  defi- 
nite aim  in  life  could  be  daunted  or  cast 
down. 

"They  that  havehadaguidschoolin' and 
do  nae  mair,  whatever  they  do,  they  have 
done;  but  him  that  has  aye  something  a- 
yont  need  never  be  weary.' ...  I  think  the 
sentiment  will  keep,  even  through  a 
change  of  words,  something  of  the  heart- 
some  ring  of  encouragement  that  it  had 
for  me;  and  that  from  a  man  cleaning  a 
byre!  You  see  what  John  Knox  and  his 
schools  have  done." 

One  can  easily  see  this  lean  man  of 
genius  loving  to  talk  even  to  "a  labourer 
cleaning  a  byre,"  while  outside  the  rain 
patters,  making  the  dust  lift  up  as  it  hits 
the  earth  with  a  "ping,"  and  the  roar  of 
the  mill-lade  punctuates  the  conversation. 
It  creates  a  strong  epithetic  picture. 

130 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

That  same  letter  has  a  touch  of  the 
Stevenson  of  the  most  intimate  essays, 
especially  in  regard  to  the  power,  which 
was  his  own,  of  making  even  sound  al- 
most visible.  For  example: 

"  We  lay  together  a  long  time  on  the 
beach;  the  sea  just  babbled  among  the 
stones;  and  at  one  time  we  heard  the  hol- 
low, sturdy  beat  of  the  paddles  of  an  un- 
seen steamer  somewhere  round  the  cape." 
It  makes  the  stillness  of  a  library  vibrate. 

One  catches  also  a  real  touch  of  theborn 
essayist  in  his  letter  to  Baxter  of  October 
1872,  which  is,  in  reality,  a  discourse  on 
Fooldom,  as  concentrated  as  a  pearl.  It  is 
so  perfect  and  concise  that  it  must  be  re- 
produced in  his  own  words. 

"  That  is  a  happy  land,  if  you  like — and 
not  so  far  away  either.  Take  a  fool's  advice 
and  let  us  strive  without  ceasing  to  get  in- 
to it.  Hark  in  your  ear  again:  'THEY  ALLOW 

PEOPLE  TO  REASON  IN  THAT  LAND.'  I  wish  I 

could  take  you  by  the  hand  and  lead  you 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

away  into  its  pleasant  boundaries.  There 
is  no  custom-house  on  the  frontier,  and 
you  may  take  in  what  books  you  will. 
There  are  no  manners  and  customs;  but 
men  and  women  grow  up,  like  trees  in  a 
still,  well- walled  garden,  'at  their  own 
sweet  will '  There  is  no  prescribed  or  cus- 
tomary folly — no  motley,  cap,  or  bauble: 
out  of  the  well  of  each  one's  own  innate 
absurdity  he  is  allowed  and  encouraged 
freely  to  draw  and  to  communicate;  and  it 
is  a  strange  thing  how  this  natural  fooling 
comes  so  nigh  to  one's  better  thoughts  of 
wisdom;  and  stranger  still,  that  all  this  dis- 
cord of  people  speaking  in  their  own  natur- 
al moods  and  keys,  masses  itself  into  a  far 
more  perfect  harmony  than  all  the  dismal, 
official  unison  in  which  they  sing  in  other 
countries.  Parting-singing  seems  best  all 
the  world  over." 


CHAPTER  NINE 

INMANYTHINGSHEMUST 
be  measured  very  largely  by  his 
heart.  Though  he  laughed  at  church- 
es he  did  not  laugh  at  the  principle 
which  was  behind  them,  for  he  was  a  child 
of  his  race  and  of  his  family.  And  he  had 
not  a  snigger  in  his  laughter.  He  had  be- 
sides, a  quick  conscience.  The  chimes  at 
midnight  might  stir  one  side  of  it,  but  the 
bells  of  the  faith  of  his  fathers  as  often 
moved  the  other  and  the  deeper  side. 
He  had  also  the  restless  impulse  of  his 
race.  He  had  the  instinct  of  action,  and 
more  than  once  he  cried  out,  "Oh  that 
I  had  been  a  soldier!"  He  was,  indeed,  a 
man  of  action,  tied  by  the  leg  to  a  sick 
bed. 

No  matter  how  the  evanescent  critics 
girded  at  the  written  thing  of  this  man's 
soul,  which  was  to  abide  when  they  and 
their  gird  were  gone,  he  was  happy  in  the 
possession  of  theunswervingconfidence  of 
133 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

faithful  friends,  and  these  also,  "namely" 
people  too,  who  knew  well  the  quality  of 
that  in  which  they  were  trusting.  He  knew, 
of  course,  that  confidence  to  be  the  most 
valuable  and  at  the  same  time  the  most 
terrible  possession  of  the  human  heart;  for 
what  if  it  one  day  got  its  eyes  opened,  also, 
to  the  possible  truth  that  what  it  valued  at 
so  high  an  estimate  were  really  fustian 
wind-blown,  for  a  brief  day's  littleness? 
Their  confidence  in  him,  however,  proved 
to  be  correct.  Time  has  justified  it. 

His  charm  was  intensely  personal.  Like 
Burns  he  possessed  an  innate  distinction 
of  personal  grace  which  found  expression 
in  his  words.  His  beauty  of  eye,  and  the 
charm  of  his  face,  where  expressions  and 
feelings  were  evanescent  and  pursuant  as 
the  wind-wave  over  the  wheat,  marked  him 
out  from  the  common  ruck  of  man.  And 
his  written  style  was  the  natural  embodi- 
ment of  his  personality. 

Stevenson's  power  of  vivid  singular 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

flashlight  vision  was  indeed  his  very  own. 
His  whole  was  apt  to  consist  of  a  succes- 
sion of  individual  scenes,  revealed  in 
splendidly  forcible  pictature.  This  is,  of 
course,  the  result  of  deliberate  devotion 
tohis  art,  the  nurture  of  his  gift,  the  polish- 
ing development  of  his  medium.  The  issue 
is  the  unique  grace  and  precision  of  his 
workmanship.  Light,  lambent  and  pure, 
plays  about  his  sentences.  His  words  are 
like  flowers  and  stars.  His  paragraphs  are 
rich  tapestries,  to  pull  a  single  thread  from 
which  would  be  to  damage  the  fabric. 
Sometimes  his  style  is  as  close  as  that  of 
Thucydides.  Besides,  his  genius  is  as  ver- 
satile and  various  as  the  moods  of  his  nat- 
ive climate.  The  novel,  the  prose-poem, 
the  epistle,  the  parable,above  all  the  essay, 
reflecting  aspects  of  Nature  and  of  the 
soul's  lifeand  conduct.  Hence  it  is  that  his 
charm  is  such  as  perennially  attracts,  with 
new  phases  of  freshness  on  each  renewal. 
Yet,  while  he  reveals  his  heart  he  does  not 
135 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

uncover  his  nakedness.  His  confidences 
are  clean.  He  is  a  gentleman. 

One  thing  needs  to  be  clearly  said,  and 
firmly  declared.  He  did  not  pose  as  an  in- 
valid. He  would  have  liked  nothing  so 
little  as  being  set  up  before  even  an  ad- 
miring public,  wrapt  in  a  blanket,  a  band- 
age round  his  head,  and  a  packet  ofcough 
drops,  duly  labelled,  on  his  lap.  Himself 
said:  "To  me  the  medicine  bottles  on  my 
chimney  and  the  blood  on  my  handker- 
chief are  accidents.  They  do  not  colour  my 
view  of  life,  and  I  should  think  myself  a 
trifler,  and  in  bad  taste,  if  I  introduced  the 
world  to  these  unimportant  trifles."  He 
would  hate  to  have  his  biography  a  series 
of  bulletins. 

Notwithstanding  his  experiences  with 
health,  or  rather  with  the  want  of  it,  his 
youth  was  entirely  immortal;  his  soul 
could  do  a  back  somersault  into  his  child- 
hood years.  Even  with  the  blood-stained 
handkerchief  at  his  lips  he  was  an  optim- 

136 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

ist.  No  man  had  a  cheerier  laugh  with 
which  to  meet  his  interviews  with  Death. 
He  never  liked  to  put  Death  out  of  count- 
enance by  making  him  feel  that  he  was 
an  unwelcome  caller.  Yet,  Death  himself 
must  often  have  felt  awkward  in  the  cham- 
ber of  such  a  man.  Tears  were  near  his 
laughter  too.  A  curious  pixie  lived  in  hid- 
ing-holes of  his  heart.  His  soul  was  an 
Ariel. 

His  opinion  of  himself  was  all  the  while 
much  more  modest  than  that  which  was 
in  the  scrap-book  of  the  gods.  His  name 
is  still  one  for  leaded  type.  There  is  a 
sheen  of  its  own  about  it.  He  had,  in  him- 
self, and  in  his  character,  a  familiar  per- 
sonal power  to  interest,  to  attach,  and  to 
charm.Hewasanattractiveinspiration,for 
he  possessed  in  rare  degree  what  appeals 
to  universal  and  primitive  sources  of  racial 
imagination.  His  genius  was  by  nature 
fastidious  and  artistically  modelled.  His 
work  in  general  has  many  master-touches 
137 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

of  inner  revelation.  The  keys  of  the  soul 
are  touched  with  master  hand  in  the  de- 
lineation of  his  characters.  His  work  is 
truest  literature,  master-pieces  of  thought, 
moulded  on  the  deepest  feelings  of  the 
universal  heart. 

The  world's  verdict  on  his  work  has 
modified  its  early  utterances  in  the  direc- 
tion of  extended  praise  and  deepening 
appreciation.  Sir  John  Millais  knew  what 
he  was  sayingwhen  he  declared/'  Nobody 
living  can  see  with  such  an  eye  as  that 
fellow,  and  nobody  is  such  a  master  of  his 
tools." 

Sometimes  he  reveals  the  inner  char- 
acter of  a  man  by  a  flash  upon  its  integu- 
ment. Thus,  how  vividly  one  can  see 
Markheim,  as  in  a  verbal  cartoon,  with 
"the  haggard  lift  of  his  upper  lip  through 
which  his  teeth  looked  out."  Or  you  find 
his  scorn  for  the  mock  religious  hypocrite, 
admirably  touched  into  the  concrete,  in 
his  picture  of  Tod  Lapraik — "a  muckle 

138 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

fat  white  hash  of  a  man  like  creish,  wi'  a 
kind  of  a  holy  smile  that  gar'd  me  scun- 
ner." 

There  always  was  a  coterie  of  know- 
ledge who  were  convinced  of  his  true  artis- 
try. Himself  knew  all  the  while,  too,  what 
he  was  seeking.  He  was  extremely  sensi- 
tive to  phrase.  To  a  friend  he  says: 

"I  hope  you  don't  dislike  reading  bad 
style  like  this  as  much  as  I  do  writing  it; 
it  hurts  me  when  neither  words  nor  clauses 
fall  into  their  places,  much  as  it  would 
hurt  you  to  sing  when  you  had  a  bad  cold 
and  your  voice  deceived  you,  and  missed 
every  other  note." 

He  was,  as  we  have  seen,  only  too  ready 
to  attribute  the  source  of  his  excellencies 
to  others,  for  he  was  poor,  and  his  soul  was 
like  a  shallop  tumbling  in  the  trough  of 
great  dark  waves,  in  which  he  had  fre- 
quent doubt  of  himself.  "I  have  given 
up  all  hope,"  he  writes,  "all  fancy  rather, 
of  making  literature  my  hold;  I  see  that 
139 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

I  have  not  capacity  enough."  It  sounds 
strange  to  us  to-day! 

He  was  blamed  and  censured  for  being 
an  egotist;  but  his  egotism  had  the  charm- 
ing innocence  of  a  child's  about  it.  The 
world  that  entered  by  his  eyes  flowed 
through  his  heart  into  utterance.  There  is 
a  Scoto-Frenchness  in  many  of  his  emo- 
tions, as  when  he  writes: 

"The  first  violet.  ...  I  do  not  think  so 
small  a  thing  has  ever  given  me  such  a 
princely  festival  of  pleasure.  I  feel  as  if  my 
heart  were  a  little  bunch  of  violets  in  my 
bosom;  and  my  brain  is  pleasantly  intox- 
icated with  the  wonderful  odour.  ...  It  is 
like  a  wind  blowing  to  one  out  of  fairy- 
land." 

In  fact,  this  kind  of  egotism  is  the 
ground  root  of  the  essayist's  labour.  The 
world  is  going  on  round  about  him,  big 
and  noisy;  but  the  essayist,  instinctively 
and  by  right  of  his  egotism,  button-holes 
the  world,  and  leads  it  into  a  side  place, 

140 


THE      HILLS     OF     HOME 

especially  to  a  place,  if  possible,  penetrated 
by  the  sound  of  running  water.  He  says 
in  effect  what  Stevenson  says  in  fact:  "I 
cannot  write  in  any  sense  of  the  word,  but 
I  am  as  happy  as  can  be,  and  I  wish  to 
notify  the  fact  before  it  passes." 

He  loved  the  children,  and  nothing 
delighted  him  more  than  to  share  in  the 
creation  of  sport  for  them.  Childlike  also 
was  his  love  of  appreciation.  It  was  with- 
held from  him  long  enough,  and  when  it 
did  come  in  little  preliminary  drops  into 
his  heart  it  was  received  with  real  grat- 
itude. He  appreciated  above  everything 
the  approval  of  common  people,  for  the 
truest  critic,  after  all,  is  the  common  uni- 
versal man.  He  liked  to  receive  criticism, 
but  certain  criticisms  annoyed  him,  espec- 
ially when  he  is  "down  in  health,  wealth, 
and  fortune."  He  begs  Henley,  "Never, 
please,  delay  such  confidences  any  more. 
If  they  come  quickly  they  are  a  help,  if 
they  come  after  long  silences  they  feel 
141 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

almost  like  a  taunt." 

He  resistantly  wriggles  under  certain 
forms  of  stricture.  But  he  has  confidence 
in  the  vision  and  the  impulse  which  master- 
fully impel  him  to  write.  "I  do  not  care," 
he  says.  "There  is  something  in  meworth 
saying,  though  I  cannot  find  what  it  is  just 
yet;  and,  ere  I  die,  if  I  do  not  die  too  fast, 
I  shall  write  something  worth  the  boards, 
which  with  scarce  an  exception  I  have  not 
yet  done."  Yet  he  had  written,  A  Lodging 
for  the  Night,  the  best  picture  of  sixteenth- 
century  Paris  with  Fra^ois  Villon  in  it, 
that  could  be  done  by  any  man  living  or 
dead,  with  Will  J  the  Mill,  and.  Providence 
and  the  Guitar! 

He  was  not  good  at  making  a  mercenary 
bargain,  hence  he  experienced  the  trad- 
itional anxieties  of  the  poverty  of  authors. 
He  touched  cash  arrangements  gingerly 
with  a  shrinking  finger. 

"  I  hate  myself  for  being  always  on 
business.  But  I  cannot  help  my  fears, 

142 


THE    HILLS      OF     HOME 

anxieties  about  money. . . .  Now  I  am  fight- 
ing with  both  hands  a  hard  battle,  and  my 
work,  while  it  will  be  as  good  as  I  can 
make  it,  will  probably  be  worth  twopence." 
How  blind  is  genius  always  to  investment 
potencies.  How  hunger  hinders  the  calcul- 
ation of  profits  while  only  provoking  the 
"liberty  of  prophesying"! 

And  now  he  needs  to  ask  for  nothing. 
Time  is  giving  him,  every  passing  day,  a 
more  abiding  reward.  Wheresoever  he  did 
a  day's  thinking,  writing  or  suffering,  has 
become  a  place  to  be  remembered.  And 
no  place,  except  that  hill-top  where  his 
dust  lies  sleeping,  is  more  transfused  with 
the  remembrance  of  his  spirit  than  the 
grey  streets  of  Edinburgh,  and  the  quiet 
"Hills  of  Home." 


THE    PENTLAND    ESSAYS 


PENTLAND  ESSAY 
NUMBER         ONE 


PASTORAL         PENTLAND  ESSAY 
NUMBER  ONE 

•  "^  O  LEAVE  HOME  IN 
early  life  is  to  be  stunned 
and  quickened  with  novel- 
JL.  ties ;  but  when  years  have 
come,  it  only  casts  a  more  endearing  light 
upon  the  past.  As  in  those  composite 
photographs  of  Mr  Gal  ton's,  the  image 
of  each  new  sitter  brings  out  but  the  more 
clearly  the  central  features  of  the  race ; 
when  once  youth  has  flown,  each  new 
impression  only  deepens  the  sense  of  na- 
tionality and  the  desire  of  native  places. 
So  may  some  cadet  of  Royal  Ecossais  or 
the  Albany  Regiment,  ashemounted guard 
about  French  citadels,  so  may  some  officer 
marching  his  company  of  the  Scots-Dutch 
among  the  polders,  have  felt  the  soft  rains 
of  the  Hebrides  upon  his  brow,  or  started 
in  the  ranks  at  the  remembered  aroma  of 
peat-smoke.  And  the  rivers  of  home  are 
dear  in  particular  to  all  men.  This  is  as  old 
as  Naaman,  who  was  jealous  for  Abana 
149 


THE     HILLS     OF      HOME 

and  Pharpar;  it  is  confined  to  no  race  nor 
country,  for  I  know  one  of  Scottish  blood 
but  a  child  of  Suffolk,  whose  fancy  still  lin- 
gers about  the  lilied  lowland  waters  of  that 
shire.  But  the  streams  of  Scotland  are  in- 
comparable in  themselves — or  I  am  only 
the  more  Scottish  to  suppose  so — and  their 
sound  and  colourdwell  for  everin the  mem- 
ory. How  often  and  willingly  do  I  not  look 
again  in  fancy  on  Tummel,  or  Manor,  or 
the  talking  Airdle,  or  Dee  swirling  in  its 
Lynn;  on  the  bright  burn  of  Kinnaird,  or 
the  golden  burn  that  pours  and  sulks  in  the 
den  behind  Kingussie!  I  think  shame  to 
leave  out  one  of  these  enchantresses,  but 
the  list  would  grow  too  long  if  I  remember- 
ed all;  only  I  may  not  forget  Allan  Water, 
nor  birch-wetting  Rogie,  nor  yet  Almond; 
nor,  for  all  its  pollutions,  that  Water  of 
Leith  of  the  many  and  well-named  mills — 
Bell's  Mills,  and  Canon  Mills,  and  Silver 
Mills;  nor  Redford  Burn  of  pleasant  mem- 
ories; nor  yet,  for  all  its  smallness,  that 

150 


PASTORAL 

nameless  trickle  that  springs  in  the  green 
bosom  of  Allermuir,  and  is  fed  from  Hal- 
kerside  with  a  perennial  teacupful,  and 
threads  the  moss  under  the  Shearer's 
Knowe,  and  makes  one  pool  there,  over- 
hung by  a  rock,  where  I  loved  to  sit  and 
make  bad  verses,  and  is  then  kidnapped  in 
itsinfancy  by  subterranean  pipesfortheser- 
vice  of  the  sea-beholding  city  in  the  plain. 
From  many  points  in  the  moss  you  may  see 
at  one  glance  its  whole  course  and  that  of 
all  its  tributaries;  the  geographer  of  this 
Lilliput  may  visit  all  its  corners  without 
sittingdown.andnotyetbegintobebreath- 
ed;  Shearer's  Knowe  and  Halkerside  are 
but  names  of  adjacent  cantons  on  a  single 
shoulder  of  a  hill,  as  names  are  squandered 
(it  would  seem  to  the  inexpert,  in  superflu- 
ity) upon  these  upland  sheepwalks;  a  buc- 
ket would  receive  the  whole  discharge  of 
the  toy  river;  it  would  take  in  an  appreci- 
able time  to  fill  your  morning  bath;  for  the 
most  part,  besides,  it  soaks  unseen  through 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

the  moss;  and  yet  for  the  sake  of  auld  lang 
syne,  and  the  figure  of  a  certain  genius  foci, 

I  am  condemned  to  linger  awhile  in  fancy 
by  its  shores;  and  if  the  nymph  (who  cannot 
be  above  a  span  in  stature)  will  but  inspire 
my  pen,  I  would  gladly  carry  the  reader 
along  with  me. 

John  Tod,  when  I  knew  him,  was  al- 
ready "the  oldest  herd  on  the  Pentlands," 
and  had  been  all  his  days  faithful  to  that 
curlew-scattering,  sheep-collecting  life. 
He  remembered  the  droving  days,  when 
the  drove  roads, that  nowliegreenand  sol- 
itary through  the  heather,  were  thronged 
thoroughfares.  He  had  himself  often  mar- 
ched flocks  into  England,  sleeping  on  the 
hillsides  with  his  caravan;  and  by  his  ac- 
count it  was  a  rough  business  not  without 
danger.  The  drove  roads  lay  apart  from 
habitation;  the  drovers  met  in  the  wilder- 
ness, asto-daythedeep-seafishers  meet  off 
the  banks  in  the  solitude  of  the  Atlantic; 
and  in  the  one  as  in  the  other  case  rough 


PASTORAL 

habits  and  first-law  were  the  rule.  Crimes 
were  committed,  sheep  filched,  and  drov- 
ers robbed  and  beaten;  most  of  which  of- 
fences had  a  moorland  burial  and  were  nev- 
er heard  of  in  the  courts  of  justice.  John, 
in  those  days,  was  at  least  once  attacked, 
— by  two  men  after  his  watch, — and  at 
least  once,  betrayed  by  his  habitual  anger, 
fell  under  the  danger  of  the  law  and  was 
clapped  into  some  rustic  prison-house,  the 
doors  of  which  he  burst  in  the  night  and 
was  no  more  heard  of  in  thatquarter.  When 
I  knew  him,  his  life  had  fallen  in  quieter 
places,  and  he  hadno  caresbeyondthedull- 
nessofhisdogs  and  the  inroads  of  pedestri- 
ans from  town.  Butfora  manof  his  propen- 
sity to  wrath  these  were  enough;  he  knew 
neither  rest  nor  peace,  except  by  snatches, 
in  the  grey  of  the  summer  morning,  and  al- 
ready from  far upthe hill,  he  would  wakethe 
"toun"  with  thesoundofhisshoutings;  and 
in  the  lambing  time,  his  cries  were  not  yet 
silenced  late  at  night.  This  wrathful  voice 

153 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

of  a  man  unseen  might  be  said  to  haunt  that 
quarter  of  the  Pentlands,  an  audible  bogie; 
and  no  doubt  it  added  to  the  fear  in  which 
menstoodof  Johnatouchofsomethingleg- 
endary.  For  my  own  part,  he  was  at  first 
my  enemy,  and  I ,  in  my  character  of  a  ram- 
bling boy,  his  natural  abhorrence.  It  was 
long  before  I  saw  him  near  at  hand,  know- 
ing him  only  by  some  sudden  blast  of  bel- 
lowing from  far  above,  bidding  me  "c'way 
oot  amang  the  sheep."  The  quietest  reces- 
ses of  the  hill  harboured  this  ogre;  I  skulk- 
ed in  my  favourite  wilderness  like  a  Cam- 
eronian  of  the  KillingTime,  andJohnTod 
was  my  Claverhouse,  and  his  dogs  my 
questing  dragoons.  Little  by  little  we  drop- 
ped into  civilities;  hishailat  sight  of  me  be- 
gan to  have  less  of  the  ring  of  a  war-slogan; 
soon,  we  never  met  but  he  produced  his 
snuff-box,  which  was  withhim,likethe  calu- 
met with  the  Red  Indian,  a  part  of  herald- 
ry of  peace;  and  at  length,  in  the  ripeness 
of  time,  we  grew  to  be  a  pair  of  friends,  and 

154 


PASTORAL 

when  I  li  vedalone  in  these  parts  of  the  win- 
ter, it  was  a  settled  thing  for  John  to  "give 
me  a  cry"  over  the  garden  wall  as  he  set 
forth  upon  his  evening  round,  and  for  me 
to  overtake  him  and  bear  him  company. 

That  dread  voice  of  his  that  shook  the 
hills  when  he  was  angry,  fell  in  ordinary 
talk  very  pleasantly  upon  the  ear,  with  a 
kind  of  honied,  friendly  whine,  not  far  off 
singing,  that  was  eminently  Scottish.  He 
laughed  not  very  often,  and  when  he  did, 
with  a  sudden,  loud  haw-haw,  hearty  but 
somehow  joyless,  like  an  echo  from  a  rock. 
His  face  was  permanently  set  and  colour- 
ed; ruddy  and  stiff  with  weathering;  more 
like  a  picture  than  a  face;yet  with  a  certain 
strain  and  a  threat  of  latent  anger  in  the 
expression,  like  that  of  a  man  trained  too 
fineand  harassed  with  perpetual  vigilance. 
He  spoke  in  the  richest  dialect  of  Scotch 
lever  heard;  the  words  in  themselves  were 
a  pleasure  and  often  a  surprise  to  me,  so 
that  I  often  came  back  from  one  of  our  pa- 
155 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

trols  with  new  acquisitions;  and  this  voca- 
bulary he  would  handlelike  a  master,  stalk- 
ing a  little  beforeme,  "beard  onshoulder," 
the  plaid  hanging  loosely  about  him,  the 
yellow  staff  clapped  under  his  arm,  and 
guiding  me  uphill  by  that  devious,  tactical 
ascent  which  seems  peculiar  to  men  of  his 
trade.  I  might  count  him  with  the  best 
talkers;  only  that  talking  Scotch  and  talk- 
ing English  seem  incomparable  acts.  He 
touched  on  nothingatleast, but  headorned 
it;  when  he  narrated,  the  scene  was  before 
you;  when  he  spoke  (as  he  did  mostly)  of 
his  own  antique  business,  the  thing  took 
on  a  colour  of  romance  and  curiosity  that 
was  surprising.  The  clans  of  sheep  with 
their  particular  territories  on  the  hill,  and 
how,  in  the  yearly  killings  and  purchases, 
each  must  be  proportionally  thinned  and 
strengthened;  the  midnight  busyness  of 
animals,  the  signs  of  the  weather,  the  cares 
of  the  snowy  season,  the  exquisite  stupi- 
dity of  sheep,  theexquisitecunningofdogs: 

156 


PASTORAL 

all  these  he  could  present  so  humanly,  and 
with  so  much  old  experience  and  living 
gusto,  that  weariness  was  excluded.  And 
in  the  midst  he  would  suddenly  straighten 
his  bowed  back,  the  stick  would  fly  abroad 
in  demonstration,  and  the  sharp  thunder 
of  his  voice  roll  out  a  long  itinerary  for  the 
dogs,  so  that  you  saw  at  last  the  use  of  that 
great  wealth  of  names  for  every  knowe 
and  howe  upon  the  hillside;  and  the  dogs, 
having  hearkened  with  lowered  tails  and 
raised  faces,  would  run  up  their  flags  again 
to  the  masthead  and  spread  themselves 
upon  the  indicated  circuit.  It  used  to  fill 
me  with  wonder  how  they  could  follow  and 
retain  so  long  a  story.  But  John  denied 
these  creatures  all  intelligence;  they  were 
the  constant  butt  of  his  passion  and  con- 
tempt; it  wasjust  possible  to  workwith  the 
like  of  them,  he  said, — not  more  than  pos- 
sible. And  then  he  would  expand  upon  the 
subject  of  the  really  good  dogs  that  he  had 
known,  and  the  one  really  good  dog  that 
157 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

he  had  himself  possessed.  He  had  been 
offered  forty  pounds  for  it;  but  a  good  col- 
lie was  worth  more  than  that,  more  than 
anything,  to  a  "herd";  he  did  the  herd's 
work  for  him.  "As  for  the  like  of  them!"  he 
would  cry,  and  scornfully  indicate  the 
scouring  tails  of  his  assistants. 

Once — I  translate  John's  Lallan,  for  I 
cannot  do  it  justice,  being  born  Britannis 
in  montibus,  indeed,  but  alas!  inerudito 
sesculo — once,  in  the  days  of  his  good  dog, 
he  had  bought  some  sheep  in  Edinburgh, 
and  on  the  way  out,  the  road  being  crowd- 
ed, two  were  lost.  This  was  a  reproach  to 
John,  and  a  slur  upon  the  dog;  and  both 
were  alive  to  their  misfortune.  Word  came, 
after  some  days,  that  a  farmer  about  Braid 
had  found  a  pair  of  sheep;  and  thither  went 
John  and  the  dog  to  askforrestitution.  But 
the  farmer  was  a  hard  man  and  stood  upon 
his  rights.  "How  were  they  marked?"  he 
asked;and  since  Johnhad  bought  right  and 
left  from  many  sellers  and  had  no  notion 

158 


PASTORAL 

of  the  marks — "Verywell/'saidthefarmer, 
"then  it's  only  right  that  I  should  keep 
them."— "Well,"said  John,  "it's  a  factthat 
I  cannae  tell  the  sheep;  but  if  my  dog  can, 
will  ye  let  me  have  them?"  The  farmer 
was  honest  as  well  as  hard,  and  besides  I 
daresay  he  had  little  fear  of  the  ordeal;  so 
he  had  all  the  sheepupon  his  farm  into  one 
large  park,  and  turned  John's  doginto  their 
midst.That  hairy  man  ofbusiness  knewhis 
errand  well;  he  knew  that  John  and  he  had 
bought  twosheep  and(to  their  shame)lost 
them  about  Boroughmuirhead;  he  knew 
besides  (the  Lord  knows  how,  unless  by 
listening)  that  they  were  come  to  Braid  for 
their  recovery;  and  without  pause  or  blun- 
der singled  out,  first  one  and  then  another, 
the  two  waifs.  It  was  that  afternoon  the 
forty  pounds  were  offered  and  refused. 
And  the  shepherd  and  his  dog — what  do 
I  say?  the  true  shepherd  and  his  man — set 
off  together  by  Fairmilehead  in  jocund 
humour,  and  "smiled  to  ither"  all  the  way 

159 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

home,  with  the  two  recovered  ones  before 
them.  So  far,  so  good; but  intelligence  may 
be  abused.  The  dog,  as  he  is  by  little  man's 
inferior  in  mind,  is  only  by  little  his  super- 
ior in  virtue;  and  John  had  another  collie 
tale  of  quite  a  different  complexion.  At  the 
foot  of  the  moss  behind  Kirk  Yetton  (Caer 
Ketton,  wise  men  say)  there  is  a  scrog  of 
low  wood  and  a  pool  with  a  dam  for  wash- 
ing sheep.  John  was  one  day  lying  under 
a  bush  in  the  scrog,  when  he  was  aware  of 
a  collie  on  the  far  hillside  skulking  down 
through  the  deepest  of  the  heather  with 
obtrusive  stealth.  He  knew  the  dog;  knew 
him  for  a  clever,  rising  practitioner  from 
quite  a  distant  farm;  one  whom  perhaps 
he  had  coveted  as  he  saw  him  masterfully 
steering  flocks  to  market.  But  whatdid  the 
practitionerso  far  fromhomePandwhy  this 
guilty  and  secret  manoeuvring  to  wards  the 
pool? — for  it  was  towards  the  pool  that  he 
was  heading.  John  lay  the  closer  under  his 
bush,  andpresently  saw  thedogcome  forth 

1 60 


PASTORAL 

upon  the  margin,  look  all  about  him  to  see 
if  he  were  anywhere  observed,  plunge  in 
and  repeatedly  wash  himselfoverheadand 
ears,  and  then  (but  now  openly  and  with 
tail  in  air)  strike  homeward  over  the  hills. 
That  same  night  word  was  sent  his  mas- 
ter, and  the  rising  practitioner,  shaken  up 
from  where  he  lay,  all  innocence,  before 
the  fire,  was  had  out  to  a  dykeside  and 
promptlyshot;  for  alas!  he  was  that  foulest 
of  criminals  under  trust,  a  sheep-eater;  and 
itwas  from  themaculation  of  sheep'sblood 
that  he  had  come  so  far  to  cleanse  himself 
in  the  pool  behind  Kirk  Yetton. 

A  trade  that  touches  nature,  one  that 
lies  at  the  foundations  of  life,  in  which  we 
have  all  had  ancestors  employed,  so  that 
on  a  hint  of  it  ancestral  memories  revive, 
lends  itself  to  literary  use,  vocal  orwritten. 
The  fortune  of  a  tale  lies  not  alone  in  the 
skill  of  him  that  writes,  but  as  much,  per- 
haps, in  the  inherited  experience  of  him 
who  reads;  and  when  I  hear  with  a  partic- 
161  L 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

ular  thrill  of  things  that  I  have  never  done 
or  seen,  it  is  one  of  that  innumerable  army 
of  my  ancestors  rejoicing  in  past  deeds. 
Thus  novels  begin  to  touch  not  the  fine 
dilettanti  but  the  gross  mass  of  mankind, 
when  they  leave  off  to  speak  of  parlours 
and  shades  of  manner  and  still-born  nice- 
ties of  motive,  and  begin  to  deal  with  fight- 
ing, sailoring,  adventure,  death  or  child- 
birth; and  thus  ancient  outdoor  crafts  and 
occupations,  whether  Mr  Hardy  wields  the 
shepherd's  crook  or  Count  Tolstoi  swings 
the  scythe,  lift  romance  into  a  near  neigh- 
bourhood with  epic.  These  aged  things 
have  on  them  the  dew  of  man's  morning; 
they  lie  near,  not  so  much  to  us,  the  semi- 
artificial  flowerets,  as  to  the  trunk  and  ab- 
original taproot  of  the  race.  A  thousand 
interests  spring  up  in  the  process  of  the 
ages,  and  a  thousand  perish;  that  is  now 
an  eccentricity  or  a  lost  art  which  was  once 
the  fashion  of  an  empire;  and  those  only 
areperennial  mattersthatrouse  us  to-day, 

162 


PASTORAL 

and  that  roused  men  in  all  epochs  of  the 
past.  There  is  a  certain  critic,  not  indeed 
of  execution  but  of  matter,  whom  I  dare 
be  known  to  set  before  the  best:  a  certain 
low-browed, hairygentleman,  atfirst  a  per- 
cher  in  the  fork  of  trees,  next  (as  they  re- 
late) a  dweller  in  caves,  and  whom  I  think 
I  see  squatting  in  cave-mouths,  of  a  plea- 
sant afternoon,  to  munch  his  berries — his 
wife,  that  accomplished  lady,  squatting  by 
hisside:hisname  I  never  heard,  butheisof- 
ten  described  as  Probably  Arboreal,  which 
may  serve  for  recognition.  Each  has  his 
own  tree  of  ancestors,  but  at  the  top  of  all 
sits  Probably  Arboreal;  in  all  our  veins 
there  runsomeminimsofhisold,  wild,  tree- 
top  blood;  our  civilised  nerves  still  tingle 
with  his  rude  terrors  and  pleasures;  and  to 
thatwhichwouldhave  movedour  common 
ancestor,  all  must  obediently  thrill. 

We  have  not  so  far  to  climb  to  come  to 
shepherds;  and  it  may  be  I  had  one  for  an 
ascendant  who  has  largely  moulded  me. 
163 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

But  yet  I  think  I  owe  my  taste  for  that  hill- 
side business  rather  to  the  art  and  interest 
of  John  Tod.  He  it  was  that  made  it  live 
for  me,  as  theartistcan  make  all  thingsli ve. 
It  was  through  him  the  simple  strategy  of 
massing  sheep  upon  a  snowy  evening,  with 
its  attendant  scampering  of  earnest,  shag- 
gy aides-de-camp,  was  an  affair  that  I  never 
wearied  of  seeing,  and  that  I  never  weary 
of  recalling  to  mind:  the  shadow  of  the  night 
darkening  on  the  hills,  inscrutable  black 
blotsofsnowshowermovinghereand  there 
like  night  already  come,  huddles  of  yellow 
sheep  and  dartings  of  black  dogs  upon  the 
snow,  abitter  air  that  took  you  by  the  throat, 
unearthly  harpings  of  the  wind  along  the 
moors; and  for  centre  piece  to  all  these  fea- 
tures and  influences,  John  winding  up  the 
brae,  keeping  his  captain's  eye  upon  all 
sides,  and  breaking,  ever  and  again,  into 
a  spasm  of  bellowing  that  seemed  to  make 
the  evening  bleaker.  It  is  thus  that  I  still 
see  him  in  my  mind's  eye,  perched  on  a 

164 


PASTORAL 

hump  of  the  declivitynot  far  from  Halker- 
side,hisstaffin  airy  flourish,  his  great  voice 
taking  hold  upon  the  hillsand  echoing  ter- 
ror to  the  lowlands;  I,  mean  while,  standing 
somewhat  back,  until  the  fit  should  be  over, 
and,  with  a  pinch  of  snuff,  my  friend  relapse 
into  his  easy,  even  conversation. 


COTTAtVF 


PENTLAND  ESSAY 
NUMBER        TWO 


AN  OLD  SCOTCH    GARDENER 
PENTLAND  ESSAY  TWO 

BY    ROBERT   LOUIS    STEVENSON 

I  THINK  I  MIGHT  ALMOST 
ha  ve  said  the  last :  some  where,  indeed, 
in  the  uttermost  glens  of  the  Lamm- 
ermuir  or  among  the  south-western 
hills  there  may  yet  linger  a  decrepid  repre- 
sentative of  this  bygone  good  fellowship; 
but  as  far  as  actual  experience  goes,  I  have 
onlymet  one  man  in  my  life  who  might  fitly 
be  quoted  in  the  same  breath  with  Andrew 
Fairservice, — though  without  his  vices. 
He  was  a  man  whose  very  presence  could 
impart  a  savour  of  quaint  antiquity  to  the 
baldest  and  most  modern  flower-pots. 
Therewas  a  dignity  about  histall  stooping 
form,  and  an  earnestness  in  his  wrinkled 
face  that  recalled  Don  Quixote;  but  a  Don 
Quixote  who  had  come  through  the  train- 
ing of  the  Covenant,  and  been  nourished 
in  his  youth  on  Walkers  Lives  and  The 
Hind  let  Loose. 

N  ow,  as  I  could  notbear  tolet  such  a  man 
171 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

pass  away  with  no  sketch  preserved  of  his 
old-fashioned  virtues,  I  hope  the  reader 
will  take  this  as  an  excuse  for  the  present 
paper,  and  j  udge  as  kindly  as  he  can  the  in- 
firmities of  my  description.Tome,whonnd 
it  so  difficult  to  tell  the  little  that  I  know, 
he  stands  essentially  as  a  genius  loci.  It  is 
impossible  to  separate  his  spare  form  and 
old  straw  hat  from  the  garden  in  the  lap  of 
the  hill,  with  its  rocks  overgrown  with  cle- 
matis, its  shadowy  walks,  and  the  splendid 
breadth  of  champaign  that  one  saw  from 
the  north-west  corner.  The  garden  and 
gardener  seem  part  and  parcel  of  each  ot- 
her. When  I  take  him  from  his  right  sur- 
roundings and  try  to  make  him  appear  for 
me  on  paper,  he  looks  unreal  and  phantas- 
mal ;  the  best  that  I  can  say  may  convey 
some  notion  to  those  that  never  saw  him, 
but  to  me  it  will  be  ever  impotent 

The  first  time  that  I  saw  him,  I  fancy 
Robert  was  pretty  old  already:  he  had  cer- 
tainly begun  to  use  his  years  as  a  stalking 

172 


OLD  SCOTCH  GARDENER 

horse.  Latterly  he  was  beyond  all  the  im- 
pudenciesof  logic,  considering  a  reference 
to  the  parish  registerworth  all  the  reasons 
in  the  world.  "/  am  old  and  well  stricken 
in  years"  he  was  wont  to  say;  and  I  never 
found  any  one  bold  enough  to  answer  the 
argument.  Apart  from  this  vantage  that  he 
kept  over  all  who  were  not  yet  octogenar- 
ian, he  hadsome  other  drawbacks  as  a  gar- 
dener. He  shrank  the  very  place  he  culti- 
vated. The  dignity  and  reduced  gentility 
of  his  appearance  made  the  small  garden 
cut  a  sorry  figure.  He  was  full  of  tales  of 
greater  situations  in  his  younger  days.  He 
spoke  of  castles  and  parks  with  a  humbling 
familiarity.  He  told  of  places  where  un- 
der-gardeners  had  trembled  at  his  looks, 
where  there  were  meres  and  swanneries, 
labyrinths  of  walk  and  wildernesses  of  sad 
shrubbery  in  his  control,  till  you  could  not 
helpfeeling  that  it  was  condescension  onhis 
part  to  dress  your  humbler  garden  plots. 
You  were  thrown  atonce  intoan  invidious 
173 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

position.  You  felt  that  you  were  profiting 
by  the  needs  ofdignity,  and  that  his  poverty 
and  not  his  will  consented  to  your  vulgar 
rule.  Involuntarily  you  compared  yourself 
with  the  swineherd  that  made  Alfred  watch 
hiscakes,orsome  bloated  citizen  who  may 
have  given  his  sons  and  hiscondescension 
to  the  fallen  Dionysius.  Nor  were  the  dis- 
agreeables purely  fanciful  and  metaphys- 
ical, for  the  sway  that  he  exercised  over 
your  feelings  he  extended  to  your  garden, 
and,  through  the  garden,  to  your  diet.  He 
would  trim  a  hedge,  throw  away  a  favourite 
plant,  or  fill  the  most  favoured  and  fertile 
section  of  the  garden  with  a  vegetable  that 
none  of  us  could  eat,  in  supreme  contempt 
for  our  opinion.  If  you  asked  him  to  send 
you  in  one  of  your  own  artichokes,  "That 
I  wull,  mem"  he  would  say,  "with  pleas- 
ure, for  it  is  mair  blessed  to  give  than  to  re- 
ceive" Ay,  and  even  when,  by  extra  twist- 
ing of  the  screw,  we  prevailed  on  him  to 
prefer  our  commands  to  his  own  inclina- 

174 


OLD  SCOTCH  GARDENER 

tion,  and  he  went  away,  stately  and  sad, 
professing  that  "ourwull  was  his  pleasure" 
but  yet  reminding  us  that  he  would  do  it 
"withfeeliiis? — even  then,  I  say,  the  tri- 
umphant master  felt  humbled  in  his  tri- 
umph, felt  that  he  ruled  on  sufferance  only, 
that  he  was  taking  a  mean  advantage  of 
the  other's  low  estate,  and  that  the  whole 
scene  had  been  one  of  those  "  slights  that 
patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes." 

In  flowers  his  taste  was  old-fashioned 
and  catholic;  affecting  sunflowers  and  dah- 
lias, wallflowers  and  roses,  and  holding  in 
supreme  aversion  whatsoever  was  fantas- 
tic, new-fashioned  or  wild.  There  was  one 
exception  to  this  sweeping  ban.  Foxgloves, 
though  undoubtedly  guilty  on  the  last 
count,  he  not  only  spared,  but  loved;  and 
when  the  shubbery  was  being  thinned,  he 
stayed  his  hand  and  dexterously  manipul- 
ated his  bill  in  order  to  save  every  stately 
stem.  Inboyhood,ashetoldmeonce,speak- 
ing  in  that  tonethatonlyactors  andtheold- 

'75 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

fashioned  common  folk  can  use  nowadays, 
his  heart  grew  " proud"  within  him  when 
he  came  on  a  burn-course  among  the  braes 
of  Manor  that  shone  purple  with  their 
graceful  trophies;  and  not  all  his  apprent- 
iceship and  practice  for  so  many  years  of 
precisegardeninghad  banished  these  boy- 
ish recollections  from  his  heart.  Indeed, he 
was  a  man  keenlyalive  to  the  beauty  of  all 
that  was  bygone.  He  abounded  in  old  stor- 
ies of  his  boyhood,  and  kept  pious  account 
of  all  his  former  pleasures;  and  when  he 
went  (onaholiday)to  visit  oneof  the  fabled 
great  places  of  the  earth  where  he  had 
served  before,  he  came  back  full  of  little 
pre-Raphaelite  reminiscences  that  show- 
ed real  passion  for  the  past,  such  as  might 
have  shaken  hands  with  Hazlitt  or  Jean- 
Jacques. 

But  however  his  sympathy  with  his  old 
feelings  might  affect  his  liking  for  the  fox- 
gloves, the  very  truth  was  that  he  scorned 
all  flowers  together.  They  were  but  gar- 

176 


OLD  SCOTCH  GARDENER 

nishings,  childish  toys,  trifling  ornaments 
for  ladies' chimney-shelves.  It  was  towards 
his  cauliflowers  andpeas  andcabbage  that 
his  heartgre  w  warm.  H  is  preference  for  the 
more  useful  growths  was  such  that  cab- 
bages werefoundinvadingthe  flower-pots, 
and  an  outpost  of  savoys  was  once  discover- 
ed in  the  centre  of  the  lawn.  He  would  pre- 
lectover  some  thriving  plant  with  wonder- 
ful enthusiasm,  piling  reminiscence  on  re- 
miniscence of  former  and  perhaps  yet  fin- 
er specimens.  Yet  even  then  he  did  not  let 
the  credit  leave  himself.  He  had,  indeed, 
raised  "finer  d  them"\  but  it  seemed  that 
no  one  else  had  been  favoured  with  a  like 
success.  All  other  gardeners,  in  fact,  were 
mere  foils  to  his  own  superior  attainments; 
and  he  would  recount,  with  perfect  sober- 
nessof  voice  and  visage,  howso  and  sohad 
wondered,  and  such  another  could  scarce- 
ly give  credit  to  his  eyes.  Nor  was  it  with 
his  rivals  only  that  he  parted  praise  and 
blame.  If  you  remarked  how  well  a  plant 

177  M 


THE      HILLS     OF     HOME 

was  looking,  he  would  gravely  touch  his 
hat  and  thank  you  with  solemn  unction; 
all  credit  in  the  matter  falling  to  him.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  you  called  his  attention  to 
some  back -going  vegetable,  he  would 
quote  Scripture:  "Paul  may  plant  andAp- 
ollos  may  water";  all  blame  being  left  to 
Providence,  on  the  score  of  deficient  rain 
or  untimely  frosts. 

There  was  one  thing  in  the  garden  that 
shared  his  preference  with  his  favourite 
cabbages  and  rhubarb,  and  that  other  was 
the  beehive.  Their  sound,  their  industry, 
perhapstheir  sweet  productalso,hadtaken 
hold  of  his  imagination  and  heart,  whether 
by  way  of  memory  or  no  I  cannot  say,  al- 
though perhaps  the  bees  too  were  linked 
tohimbysome  recollectionof  Manor  braes 
and  his  country  childhood.  Nevertheless, 
he  was  too  chary  of  his  personal  safety  or 
(let  me  rather  say)  his  personal  dignity  to 
mingle  in  any  active  office  towards  them. 
But  hecould  stand  by  while  oneof  the  con- 

178 


OLD  SCOTCH  GARDENER 

temned  rivals  did  the  work  for  him,  and 
protest  that  it  was  quite  safe  in  spite  of  his 
own  considerate  distance  and  the  cries  of 
the  distressed  assistant.  In  regard  to  bees, 
he  was  rather  a  man  of  word  than  deed,  and 
someof  hismoststriking  sentences  had  the 
bees  for  text.  "  They  are  indeed  wonder/it 
creahires,  mem"  he  said  once.  "  They  just 
mind  me  o  what  the  Queen  of  Sheba  said 
to  Solomon — and  I  think  she  said  it  wl  a 
sigh, — '  The  half  of  it  hath  not  beentold  un- 
to me.'" 

As  far  as  the  Bible  goes,  he  was  deeply 
read,  like  the  old  Covenanters,  of  whom  he 
was  the  worthy  representative,  his  mouth 
was  full  of  sacred  quotations ;  it  was  the  book 
that  he  had  studied  most  and  thought  up- 
on most  deeply.  To  many  people  in  his  sta- 
tion the  Bible,  and  perhaps  Burns,  are  the 
only  books  of  any  vital  literary  merit  that 
they  read,  feeding  themselves,  for  the  rest, 
on  the  draff  of  country  newspapers,  and  the 
very  instructive  but  notvery  palatable  pa- 
179 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

bulum  of  some  cheap  educational  series. 
This  was  Robert's  position.  All  day  long 
he  had  dreamed  of  the  Hebrew  stories,  and 
his  head  had  been  full  of  Hebrew  poetry 
and  Gospel  ethics;  until  they  had  struck 
deep  root  into  his  heart,  and  the  very  ex- 
pressions had  become  a  partof  him;so  that 
he  rarely  spoke  without  someantique  idiom 
or  Scripture  mannerism  that  gave  a  raci- 
ness  to  the  merest  trivialities  of  talk.  But 
the  influence  of  the  Bible  did  not  stop  here. 
There  was  more  in  Robert  than  quaint 
phrase  and  ready  store  of  reference.  He 
was  imbued  with  a  spirit  of  peaceand  love: 
he  interposed  between  man  and  wife:  he 
threw  himself  between  the  angry,  touching 
his  hat  the  while  with  all  the  ceremony  of 
an  usher:  he  protected  the  birds  from  every 
body  but  himself,  seeing,  I  suppose,  a  great 
difference  between  official  execution  and 
wanton  sport.  His  mistresstelling  him  one 
day  to  put  some  ferns  into  his  master's  par- 
ticular corner,  and  adding,  "Though,  in- 

180 


OLD  SCOTCH  GARDENER 

deed,  Robert,  he  doesn't  deserve  them,  for 
he  wouldn't  help  me  to  gather  them,"  "Eh 
mem"  replies  Robert,  "but  I  wouldnae  say 
that,  for  I  think  he  s  just  a  most  deserviri 
gentleman. "  Again,  two  of  our  friends,  who 
were  on  intimate  terms,  and  accustomed  to 
use  language  to  each  other,  some  what  with- 
out the  bounds  of  the  parliamentary,  hap- 
pened to  differ  about  the  position  of  a  seat 
in  he  garden.  The  discussion,  as  was  usual 
when  these  two  were  at  it,  soon  waxed  tol- 
erably insulting  on  both  sides.  Every  one 
accustomed  to  such  controversies  several 
times  a  day  was  quietly  enjoy  ing  this  prize- 
fight of  somewhat  abusive  wit — everyone 
but  Robert,  to  whom  the  perfect  good  faith 
of  the  whole  quarrel  seemed  unquestion- 
able, and  who,  after  having  waited  till  his 
conscience  would  suffer  him  to  wait  no 
more,  and  till  he  expected  every  moment 
that  the  disputants  would  fall  to  blows,  cut 
suddenly  in  with  tones  of  almost  tearful  en- 
treaty: "Eh,  but, gentlemen,  I  ivadhaenae 
181 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

mair  words  about  it /"One  thing  was  notice- 
able about  Robert'sreligion:  itwas  neither 
dogmatic  nor  sectarian.  He  never  expati- 
ated (at  least,  in  my  hearing)  on  the  doct- 
rines of  his  creed,  and  he  never  condemn- 
ed anybody  else.  I  have  no  doubt  that  he 
held  all  Roman  Catholics,  Atheists,  and 
Mahometans  as  considerably  out  of  it;  I 
don't  believe  he  had  any  sympathy  for  Pre- 
lacy; and  the  natural  feelings  of  man  must 
have  made  him  a  little  sore  about  Free- 
Churchism;  but  at  least,  he  never  talked 
about  these  views,  never  grew  controver- 
sially noisy,  and  never  openly  aspersed  the 
belief  or  practice  of  anybody.  Now  all  this 
is  not  generally  characteristic  of  Scotch 
piety;  Scotch  sects  beingchurches  militant 
with  a  vengeance,  and  Scotch  believers 
perpetual  crusaders  the  one  against  the  ot- 
her, and  missionaries  the  one  to  the  other. 
Perhaps  Robert's  originally  tender  heart 
was  what  made  the  difference;  or,  perhaps, 
his  solitary  and  pleasant  labour  among 

182 


OLD  SCOTCH  GARDENER 

fruits  and  flowers  had  taught  him  a  more 
sunshiny  creed  than  those  whose  work  is 
among1  the  tares  of  fallen  humanity;  and 
the  soft  influencesof  thegarden  had  enter- 
ed deep  into  his  spirit, 

"  Annihilating  all  that's  made 
To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade." 

But  I  could  go  on  for  ever  chronicling 
his  golden  sayings  or  telling  of  his  inno- 
cent and  living  piety.  I  had  meant  to  tell 
of  his  cottage  with  the  German  pipe  hung 
reverently  above  the  fire,  and  the  shell  box 
that  he  had  made  for  his  son,  and  of  which 
he  would  say  pathetically:  "He  was  real 
pleased  wi  it  at  first,  but  I  think  he  s  got  a 
kindo  tired o  it  now" — the  son  being  then 
a  man  of  about  forty.  But  I  will  let  all  these 
pass.  "'Tis  more  significant:  he's  dead." 
The  earth,  that  he  had  digged  so  much  in 
his  life,  was  dug  out  by  another  for  himself; 
and  the  flowers  that  he  had  tended  drew 
their  life  still  from  him,  but  in  a  new  and 
nearer  way.  A  bird  flew  about  the  open 
183 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

grave  as  if  it  too  wished  to  honour  the  ob- 
sequies of  one  who  had  so  often  quoted 
Scripture  in  favour  of  its  kind:  "Are  not 
two  sparrows  sold  for  one  farthing,  and  yet 
not  one  of  them  falleth  to  the  ground." 

Yes,  he  is  dead.  But  the  kings  did  not 
rise  in  the  place  of  death  to  greet  him  "with 
taunting  proverbs"  as  they  rose  to  greet 
the  haughty  Babylonian;  for  in  his  life  he 

was  lowly,  and  a  peacemaker  and  a 
servant  of  God. 


PENTLAND  ESSAY 
NUMBER    THREE 


THE    MANSE   PENTLAND   ESSAY 
NUMBER  THREE 

1HAVE  NAMED,  AMONG 
many  rivers  that  make  music  in  my 
memory,  that  dirty  Water  of  Leith. 
Often  and  often  I  desire  to  look  upon 
it  again;  and  the  choice  of  a  point  of  view  is 
easy  to  me.  It  should  be  at  a  certain  water- 
door,  embowered  in  shrubbery.  The  river 
is  there  dammed  back  for  the  service  of 
the  flour-mill  just  below,  so  that  it  lies 
deep  and  darkling,  and  the  sand  slopes 
into  brown  obscurity  with  a  glint  of  gold, 
and  it  has  but  newly  been  recruited  by  the 
borrowings  of  the  snuff-mill  just  above, 
and  these,  tumbling  merrily  in,  shake  the 
pool  to  its  black  heart,  fill  it  with  drowsy 
eddies,  and  set  the  curded  froth  of  many 
other  mills  solemnly  steering  to  and  fro 
upon  the  surface.  Or  so  it  was  when  I  was 
young;  for  change,  and  the  masons,  and 
the  pruning-knife,  have  been  busy;  and  if 
I  could  hope  to  repeat  a  cherished  experi- 
ence, it  must  be  on  many  and  impossible 
189 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

conditions.  I  must  choose,  as  well  as  the 
point  of  view,  a  certain  moment  in  my 
growth,  so  that  the  scale  may  be  exagger- 
ated, and  the  trees  on  the  steep  opposite 
side  may  seem  to  climb  to  heaven,  and  the 
sand  by  the  water-door,  where  I  am  stand- 
ing, seem  as  low  as  Styx.  And  I  must 
choose  the  season  also,  so  that  the  valley 
may  be  brimmed  like  a  cup  with  sunshine 
and  the  songs  of  birds; — and  the  year  of 
grace,  so  that  when  I  turn  to  leave  the 
riverside  I  may  find  the  old  manse  and  its 
inhabitants  unchanged. 

It  was  a  place  in  that  time  like  no  other: 
the  garden  cut  into  provinces  by  a  great 
hedge  of  beech,  and  overlooked  by  the 
church  and  the  terrace  of  the  churchyard, 
where  the  tombstones  were  thick,  and  af- 
ter nightfall  "  spunkies  "  might  be  seen  to 
dance  at  least  by  children;  flower-plots  ly- 
ing warm  in  sunshine;  laurels  and  the 
great  yew  making  elsewhere  a  pleasing 
horror  of  shade;  the  smell  of  water  rising 

190 


THE  MANSE 

from  all  round,  with  an  added  tang  of 
paper-mills;  the  sound  of  water  every- 
where, and  the  sound  of  mills — the  wheel 
and  the  dam  singing  their  alternate  strain; 
the  birds  on  every  bush  and  from  every 
corner  of  the  overhanging  woods  pealing 
out  their  notes  until  the  air  throbbed  with 
them;  and  in  the  midst  of  this,  the  manse. 
I  see  it,  by  the  standard  of  my  childish 
stature,  as  a  great  and  roomy  house.  In 
truth,  it  was  not  so  large  as  I  supposed, 
nor  yet  so  convenient,  and,  standing  where 
it  did,  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  it  was 
healthful.  Yet  a  large  family  of  stalwart 
sons  and  tall  daughters  were  housed  and 
reared,  and  came  to  man  and  womanhood 
in  that  nest  of  little  chambers;  so  that  the 
face  of  the  earth  was  peppered  with  the 
children  of  the  manse,  and  letters  with  out- 
landish stamps  became  familiar  to  the 
local  postman,  and  the  walls  of  the  little 
chambers  brightened  with  the  wonders  of 
the  East.  The  dullest  could  see  this  was  a 
191 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

house  that  had  a  pair  of  hands  in  divers 
foreign  places:  a  well-beloved  house — its 
image  fondly  dwelt  on  by  many  travellers. 
Here  lived  an  ancestor  of  mine,  who 
was  a  herd  of  men.  I  read  him,  judging 
with  older  criticism  the  report  of  childish 
observation,  as  a  man  of  singular  simpli- 
city of  nature;  unemotional,  and  hating 
the  display  of  what  he  felt;  standing  con- 
tented on  the  old  ways;  a  lover  of  his  life 
and  innocent  habits  to  the  end.  We  chil- 
dren admired  him:  partly  for  his  beautiful 
face  and  silver  hair,  for  none  more  than 
children  are  concerned  for  beauty  and, 
above  all,  for  beauty  in  the  old;  partly  for 
the  solemn  light  in  which  we  beheld  him 
once  a  week,  the  observed  of  all  observers, 
in  the  pulpit.  But  his  strictness  and  dis- 
tance, the  effect,  I  now  fancy,  of  old  age, 
slow  blood,  and  settled  habit,  oppressed 
us  with  a  kind  of  terror.  When  not  abroad, 
he  sat  much  alone,  writing  sermons  or  let- 
ters to  his  scattered  family  in  a  dark  and 

192 


THE  MANSE 

cold  room  with  a  library  of  bloodless  books 
— or  so  they  seemed  in  those  days,  al- 
though I  have  some  of  them  now  on  my 
own  shelves  and  like  well  enough  to  read 
them;  and  these  lonely  hours  wrapped  him 
in  the  greater  gloom  for  our  imaginations. 
But  the  study  had  a  redeeming  grace  in 
many  Indian  pictures,  gaudily  coloured 
and  dear  to  young  eyes.  I  cannot  depict 
(for  I  have  no  such  passions  now)  the 
greed  with  which  I  beheld  them;  and  when 
I  was  once  sent  in  to  say  a  psalm  to  my 
grandfather,  I  went,  quaking  indeed  with 
fear,  but  at  the  same  time  glowing  with 
hope  that,  if  I  said  it  well,  he  might  reward 
me  with  an  Indian  picture. 

"Thy  foot  He'll  not  let  slide,  nor  will 
He  slumber  that  thee  keeps," 

it  ran:  a  strange  conglomerate  of  the  un- 
pronounceable, a  sad  model  to  set  in  child- 
hood before  one  who  was  himself  to  be  a 
versifier,  and  a  task  in  recitation  that  real- 
ly merited  reward.  And  I  must  suppose 
193  N 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

the  old  man  thought  so  too,  and  was  either 
touched  or  amused  by  the  performance ;  for 
he  took  me  in  his  arms  with  most  unwonted 
tenderness,  and  kissed  me,  and  gave  me  a 
little  kindly  sermon  for  my  psalm;  so  that, 
for  that  day,  we  were  clerk  and  parson.  I 
was  struck  by  this  reception  into  so  tender 
a  surprise  that  I  forgot  mydisappointment. 
And  indeed  the  hope  was  one  of  those  that 
childhood  forges  for  a  pastime,  and  with 
no  design  upon  reality.  Nothing  was  more 
unlikely  than  that  my  grandfather  should 
strip  himself  of  one  of  those  pictures,  love- 
gifts  and  reminders  of  his  absent  sons;  no- 
thing more  unlikely  than  that  he  should 
bestow  it  upon  me.  He  had  no  idea  of  spoil- 
ing children,  leaving  all  that  to  my  aunt; 
he  had  fared  hard  himself,  and  blubbered 
under  the  rod  in  the  last  century;  and  his 
ways  were  still  Spartan  for  the  young.  The 
last  word  I  heard  upon  his  lips  was  in  this 
Spartan  key.  He  had  over- walked  in  the 
teeth  of  an  east  wind,  and  was  now  near  the 

194 


THE  MANSE 

end  of  his  many  days.  He  sat  by  the  dining- 
room  fire,  with  his  white  hair,  pale  face  and 
bloodshot  eyes,  a  somewhat  awful  figure; 
and  my  aunt  had  given  him  a  dose  of  our 
good  old  Scotch  medicine,  Dr  Gregory's 
powder.  Now  that  remedy,  as  the  work  of 
a  near  kinsman  of  Rob  Roy  himself,  may 
have  a  savour  of  romance  for  the  imagina- 
tion; but  it  comes  uncouthly  to  the  palate. 
The  old  gentleman  had  taken  it  with  a  wry 
face;  and  that  being  accomplished,  sat  with 
perfect  simplicity,  like  a  child's,  munching 
a  "  barley-sugar  kiss."  But  when  my  aunt, 
having  the  canister  open  in  her  hands,  pro- 
posed to  let  me  share  in  the  sweets,  he  in- 
terfered at  once.  I  had  no  Gregory;  then  I 
should  have  no  barley-sugar  kiss:  so  he 
decided  with  a  touch  "of  irritation.  And 
just  then  the  phaeton  coming  opportune- 
ly to  the  kitchen  door — for  such  was  our 
unlordly  fashion — I  was  taken  for  the 
last  time  from  the  presence  of  my  grand- 
father. 

195 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

Now  I  often  wonder  what  I  have  inherit- 
ed from  this  old  minister.  I  must  suppose, 
indeed,  that  he  was  fond  of  preaching  ser- 
mons, and  so  am  I,  though  I  never  heard 
itmaintainedthateitherof  us  loved  to  hear 
them.  He  sought  health  in  his  youth  in  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  and  I  have  sought  it  in  both 
hemispheres;  but  whereas  he  found  and 
kept  it,  I  am  still  on  the  quest.  He  was  a 
great  lover  of  Shakespeare,  whom  he  read 
aloud,  I  have  been  told,  with  taste;  well,  I 
love  my  Shakespeare  also,  and  am  per- 
suaded I  can  read  him  well,  though  I  own 
I  never  have  been  told  so.  He  made  em- 
broidery, designing  his  own  patterns;  and 
in  that  kind  of  work  I  never  made  anything 
but  a  kettle-holder  in  Berlin  wool,  and  an 
odd  garter  of  knitting,  which  was  as  black 
as  the  chimney  before  I  had  done  with  it. 
Heloved  port,  and  nuts,  and  porter;  and  so 
do  I,  but  they  agreed  better  with  my  grand- 
father, which  seems  to  me  a  breach  of  con- 
tract. He  had  chalk-stones  in  his  fingers; 

196 


THE  MANSE 

and  these,  in  good  time,  I  may  possibly  in- 
herit, but  I  would  much  rather  have  inherit- 
ed his  noble  presence.  Try  as  I  please,  I 
cannot  join  myself  with  the  reverend  doc- 
tor; and  all  the  while,  no  doubt,  and  even 
as  I  write  the  phrase,  he  moves  in  my  blood, 
and  whispers  words  to  me,andsits  efficient 
in  theveryknot  and  centre  of  my  being.  In 
his  garden,  as  I  played  there,  I  learned  the 
loveof  mills — orhad  I  anancestor  a  miller? 
— and  a  kindness  for  the  neighbourhood  of 
graves,  as  homely  things  not  without  their 
poetry — orhad  I  an  ancestor  sexton?  But 
what  of  the  garden  where  he  played  him- 
self?— forthat,  too,  was  the  sceneof  my  edu- 
cation. Some  part  of  me  played  therein  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  ran  races  under  the 
green  avenue  at  Pilrig;  some  part  of  me 
trudged  up  Leith  Walk,  which  was  still  a 
country  place,  and  sat  on  the  High  School 
benches,  and  was  thrashed,  perhaps,  by  Dr 
Adam.  The  house  where  I  spent  my  youth 
was  not  yet  thought  upon;  but  we  made 
197 


holiday  parties  among  the  cornfields  on  its 
site,  and  ate  strawberries  and  cream  near 
by  at  a  gardener's.  All  this  I  had  forgotten; 
onlymygrandfatherrememberedandonce 
reminded  me.  I  have  forgotten,  too,  how 
we  grew  up,  and  took  orders,  and  went  to 
our  first  Ayrshire  parish,  and  fell  in  love 
with  and  married  a  daughterof  Burns's  Dr 
Smith — "Smith  opens  out  his  cauld  har- 
angues." I  have  forgotten,  but  I  was  there 
all  the  same,  and  heard  stories  of  Burns  at 
first  hand. 

And  there  is  a  thing  stranger  than  all 
that;  for  this  homunculus  or  part-man  of 
mine  that  walked  about  the  eighteenth 
century  with  Dr  Balfour  in  his  youth,  was 
in  the  way  of  meeting  other  homunculos 
or  part-men,  in  the  persons  of  my  otheran- 
cestors.  These  were  of  a  lower  order,  and 
doubtless  we  looked  down  upon  them  duly. 
But  as  I  went  to  college  with  Dr  Balfour, 
I  may  have  seen  the  lamp  and  oil  man  tak- 
ing down  the  shutters  from  his  shop  beside 

198 


THE  MANSE 

the  Tron; — we  may  have  had  a  rabbit- 
hutch  or  a  book-shelf  made  for  us  by  a  cer- 
tain carpenter  in  I  know  not  what  wynd 
of  the  old,  smoky  city;  or,  upon  some  holi- 
day excursion,  we  may  have  looked  into 
the  windows  of  a  cottagein  a  flower-garden 
and  seen  a  certain  weaver  plying  his  shut- 
tle. And  these  were  all  kinsmen  of  mine 
upon  the  other  side;  and  from  the  eyes  of 
the  lamp  and  oil  man  one-half  of  my  un  born 
father,  and  one-quarter  of  myself,  looked 
out  upon  us  as  we  went  by  to  college.  No- 
thing of  all  this  would  cross  the  mindof  the 
young  student,  as  hepostedupthe  Bridges 
with  trim,  stockinged  legs,  in  that  city  of 
cocked  hats  and  good  Scotch  still  unadul- 
terated. It  would  not  cross  his  mind  that 
he  should  have  a  daughter;  and  the  lamp 
and  oil  man,  just  then  beginning,  by  a  not 
unnatural  metastasis,  to  bloom  intoa  light- 
house-engineer, should  have  a  grandson; 
and  that  these  two,  in  the  fulness  of  time, 
should  wed;  and  some  portion  of  that  stu- 
199 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

dent  himself  should  survive  yet  a  year  or 
two  longer  in  the  person  of  their  child. 

Butourancestraladventuresare  beyond 
even  the  arithmetic  of  fancy;  and  it  is  the 
chief  recommendation  of  long  pedigrees, 
that  we  can  follow  backward  the  careers  of 
our  &omuncu/osa.nd  be  reminded  of  our  an- 
tenatal lives.  Our  conscious  years  are  but  a 
moment  in  the  history  of  the  elements  that 
build  us.  Are  you  a  bank-clerk,  and  do  you 
live  at  Peckham  Pit  was  not  always  so.  And 
though  to-day  I  am  only  a  man  of  letters, 
either  tradition  errs  or  I  was  present  when 
there  landed  at  St  Andrews  a  French  bar- 
ber-surgeon, to  tend  the  health  and  the 
beard  of  thegreat  Cardinal  Beaton;!  have 
shaken  a  spear  in  the  Debateable  Land  and 
shouted  the  slogan  of  the  Elliots;  I  was  pre- 
sent when  a  skipper,  plying  from  Dundee, 
smuggled  J  acobites  to  France  after  the '  1 5 ; 
I  was  in  a  West  India  merchant's  office, 
perhaps  next  door  to  Bailie  Nicol  Jarvie's, 
and  managed  the  business  of  a  plantation 

200 


THE  MANSE 

in  St  Kitt's;  I  was  with  my  engineer-grand- 
father (the  son-in-law  of  the  lamp  and  oil 
man)  when  he  sailed  north  about  Scotland 
on  the  famous  cruise  that  gave  us  the  Pir- 
ate  and  the  Lordofthelsles\  I  waswithhim, 
too,  on  the  Bell  Rock,  in  the  fog,  when  the 
Smeaton  had  drifted  from  her  moorings, 
and  the  Aberdeen  men,  pick  in  hand,  had 
seized  upon  the  only  boats,  and  he  must 
stoop  and  lap  sea- water  before  his  tongue 
could  utter  audible  words;  and  once  more 
with  him  when  the  Bell  Rock  beacon  took 
a  "thrawe,"  and  his  workmen  fled  into  the 
tower,  then  nearly  finished,  and  he  sat  un- 
moved reading  in  his  Bible — or  affecting 
to  read — till  one  after  another  slunk  back 
with  confusion  of  countenance  to  their  en- 
gineer. Yes,  parts  of  me  have  seen  life,  and 
met  adventures,  and  sometimes  met  them 
well.  And  away  in  the  still  cloudier  past, 
the  threads  that  make  me  up  can  be  traced 
by  fancy  into  the  bosoms  of  thousands  and 
millions  of  ascendants:  Picts  who  rallied 
201 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

round  Macbeth  and  the  old  (and  highly 
preferable)  system  of  descent  by  females, 
fleers  from  before  the  legions  of  Agricola, 
marchers  in  Pannonian  morasses,  star-gaz- 
ers on  Chaldaean  plateaus;  and,  furthest  of 
all,  what  face  is  this  that  fancy  can  see  peer- 
ing through  thedisparted  branches?  What 
sleeper  in  green  tree-tops,  what  muncher 
of  nuts,  concludes  my  pedigree?  Probably 
arboreal  in  his  habits.  . . . 

And  I  know  not  which  is  the  more 
strange,  that  I  should  carry  about  with  me 
some  fibres  of  my  minister-grandfather;  or 
that  in  him,  as  he  sat  in  his  cool  study,  grave, 
reverend,  contented  gentleman,  there  was 
an  aboriginal  frisking  of  the  blood  that  was 
not  his;  tree-top  memories,  like  undevel- 
oped negatives,  lay  dormant  in  his  mind; 
tree-top  instincts  awoke  and  were  trod 
down;  and  Probably  Arboreal  (scarce  to 
be  distinguished  from  a  monkey)gamboll- 
ed  and  chattered  in  the  brain  of 
the  old  divine. 

202 


PENTLAND  ESSAY 
NUMBER       FOUR 


THE  PENTLAND  RISING     A  PAGE 
OF  HISTORY  1666 

PENTLAND  ESSAY  NUMBER  FOUR 


I     THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLT 


o 


THE  PENTLAND  RISING    A  PAGE 
OF  HISTORY  1666 

PENTLAND  ESSAY  NUMBER  FOUR 

I       THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLT 


Iago  a  tragedy  was  enacted  in 
Scotland,  the  memory  where- 
of has  been  in  great  measure 
lost  or  obscured  by  the  deep  tragedies 
which  followed  it.  1 1  is,  as  it  were,  the  even- 
ing of  the  night  of  persecution — a  sort  of 
twilight,  dark  indeed  to  us,  but  light  as  the 
noonday  when  compared  with  the  mid- 
night gloom  which  followed.  This  fact,  of 
its  being  the  very  threshold  of  persecution, 
lends  it,  however,  an  additional  interest. 

The  prejudices  of  the  people  against 
Episcopacy  were  "out  of  measure  in- 
creased," says  Bishop  Burnet,  "by  the 
new  incumbents  who  were  put  in  the  place 
of  the  ejected  preachers,  and  were  gener- 
ally very  mean  and  despicable  in  all  re" 
spects.  They  were  the  worst  preachers  I 
ever  heard;  they  were  ignorant  to  a  re- 
211 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

proach;  and  many  of  them  were  openly 
vicious.  They  were  indeed  the  dregs  and 
refuseof  the  northern  parts.  Thoseof  them 
who  arose  above  contempt  or  scandal  were 
men  of  such  violent  tempers  that  they 
were  as  muchhated  as  the  others  were  de- 
spised."* It  was  little  to  be  wondered  at, 
from  this  account,  that  the  country-folk 
refused  to  go  to  the  parish  church,  and 
chose  rather  to  listen  to  outed  ministers 
in  the  fields.  But  this  was  not  to  be  allowed, 
and  their  persecutors  at  last  fell  on  the 
method  of  calling  a  roll  of  the  parishioners' 
names  every  Sabbath,  and  marking  a  fine 
of  twenty  shillings  Scots  to  the  name  of 
each  absenter.  In  this  way  very  large 
debts  were  incurred  bypersons  altogether 
unable  to  pay.  Besides  this,  landlords  were 
fined  for  their  tenants'  absences,  tenants 
for  their  landlords,  masters  for  their  serv- 
ants, servants  for  their  masters,  even 

* History  of  My  Own  Times,   beginning  1660,  by 
Bishop  Gilbert,  p.  158. 

212 


CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLT 

though  in  their  attendance  they  themselves 
were  perfectly  regular.  And  as  the  cur- 
ates were  allowed  to  fine  with  the  sanct- 
ion of  any  common  soldier,  it  may  be  im- 
agined that  often  the  pretexts  were  neither 
very  sufficient  nor  well  proven. 

When  the  fines  could  not  be  paid  at 
once,  Bibles,  clothes,  and  household  uten- 
sils were  seized  upon,  or  a  number  of 
soldiers,  proportionate  to  his  wealth,  were 
quartered  on  the  offender.  The  coarse  and 
drunken  privates  filled  the  houses  with 
woe;  snatched  the  bread  from  the  children 
to  feed  their  dogs;  shocked  the  principles, 
scorned  the  scruples,  and  blasphemed  the 
religion  of  their  humble  hosts;  and  when 
they  had  reduced  them  to  destitution,  sold 
the  furniture,  and  burned  down  the  roof- 
tree  which  was  consecrated  to  the  peas- 
ants by  the  name  of  Home.  For  all  this 
attention  each  of  these  soldiers  received 
from  his  unwilling  landlord  a  certain  sum 
of  money  perday — threeshillings  sterling, 
213 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

according  to  "Naphtali"  And  frequently 
they  were  forced  to  pay  quartering  money 
for  more  men  than  were  in  reality  "cess- 
ed"on  them.  At  that  time  itwas  no  strange 
thing  to  behold  a  strong  man  begging 
for  money  to  pay  his  fines,  and  many 
others  who  were  deep  in  arrears,  or  who 
had  attracted  attention  in  some  other  way, 
were  forced  to  flee  from  their  homes,  and 
take  refuge  from  arrest  and  imprisonment 
among  the  wild  mosses  of  the  uplands.* 
One  example  in  particular  we  may  cite: 
John  Neilson,  the  Laird  of  Corsack,  a 
worthy  man,  was,  unfortunately  for  him- 
self, a  Nonconformist.  First  he  was  fined 
in  four  hundred  pounds  Scots,  and  then 
through  cessing  he  lost  nineteen  hundred 
and  ninety-three  pounds  Scots.  He  was 
next  obliged  to  leave  his  house  and  flee 
from  place  to  place,  during  which  wander- 
ings he  lost  his  horse.  His  wife  and  child- 
ren were  turned  out  of  doors,  and  then  his 

*Wodrow's  Church  History \  Book  II.  chap.  i.  sect.  i. 

214 


CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLT 

tenants  were  fined  till  they  too  were  almost 
ruined.  As  a  final  stroke,  they  drove  away 
all  his  cattle  to  Glasgow  and  sold  them.* 
Surely  it  was  time  that  something  were 
done  to  alleviate  so  much  sorrow,  to  over- 
throw such  tyranny. 

About  this  time  too  there  arrived  in 
Galloway  a  person  calling  himself  Captain 
Andrew  Gray,  and  advising  the  people  to 
revolt.  He  displayed  some  documents 
purporting  to  be  from  the  northern  Coven- 
anters, and  stating  that  they  were  pre- 
pared to  join  in  any  enterprise  commenced 
by  their  southern  brethren.  The  leader  of 
the  persecutors  was  Sir  James  Turner,  an 
officer  afterwards  degraded  for  his  share 
in  the  matter.  "He  was  naturally  fierce, 
but  was  mad  when  he  was  drunk,  and  that 
was  very  often," said  Bishop  Burnet.  "He 
was  a  learned  man,  but  had  always  been  in 
armies,  and  knew  no  other  rule  but  to  obey 
orders.  He  told  me  he  had  no  regard  to  any 

*Cruikshank's  Church  History ',  1751,  2nd  edit.p.  202. 
215 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

law,  but  acted,  as  he  was  commanded,  in  a 
military  way."* 

This  was  the  state  of  matters,  when  an 
outrage  was  committed  which  gave  spirit 
and  determination  to  the  oppressed  coun- 
trymen, lit  the  flame  of  insubordination, 
and  for  the  time  at  least  recoiled  on  those 
who  perpetrated  it  with  redoubled  force. 
*Burnet,  p.  348. 


II  THE  BEGINNING 


I  love  no  warres, 
I  love  no  jarres, 

Nor  strife's  fire. 
May  discord  cease, 
Let's  live  in  peace: 

This  I  desire. 

If  it  must  be 
Warre  we  must  see 

(So  fates  conspire), 
May  we  not  feel 
The  force  of  steel: 

This  I  desire. 

T.  JACKSON,  1651.* 


*  Fuller's  Historie  of  the  Holy  Warre,  4th  edit.  1651. 


II  THE  BEGINNING 

L"PON  TUESDAY,  NOV- 
ember  i3th,  1666,  Corporal 
George  Deanes  and  three 
other  soldiers  set  upon  an  old 
man  in  the  clachan  of  Dairy  and  demanded 
the  payment  of  his  fines.  On  the  old  man's 
refusing  to  pay,  they  forced  a  large  party  of 
his  neighbours  to  go  with  them  and  thresh 
hiscorn.Thefield  was  acertain  distance  out 
of  the  clachan,  and  four  persons,  disguised 
as  countrymen,  who  had  been  out  on  the 
moors  all  night,  met  this  mournful  drove 
of  slaves,  compelled  by  the  four  soldiers 
to  work  for  the  ruin  of  their  friend.  How- 
ever, chilled  to  the  bone  by  their  night  on 
the  hills,  and  worn  out  by  want  of  food, 
they  proceeded  to  the  village  inn  to  re- 
fresh themselves.  Suddenly  some  people 
rushed  into  the  room  where  they  were  sit- 
ting, and  told  them  that  the  soldiers  were 
about  to  roast  the  old  man,  naked,  on  his 
own  girdle.  This  was  too  much  for  them 
to  stand,  and  they  repaired  immediately 
219 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

to  the  scene  of  this  gross  outrage,  and  at 
first  merely  requested  that  the  captive 
should  be  released.  On  the  refusal  of  the 
two  soldiers  who  were  in  the  front  room, 
high  words  were  given  and  taken  on  both 
sides,  and  the  other  two  rushed  forth  from 
an  adjoining  chamber  and  made  at  the 
countrymen  with  drawn  swords.  One  of 
the  latter,  John  M '  Lellan  of  Barskob,  drew 
a  pistol  and  shot  the  corporal  in  the  body. 
The  pieces  of  tobacco-pipe  with  which  it 
was  loaded,  to  the  number  of  ten  at  least, 
entered  him,  and  he  was  so  much  disturb- 
ed that  he  never  appears  to  have  recover- 
ed, for  we  find  long  afterwards  a  petition 
to  the  Privy  Council  requesting  a  pension 
for  him.  The  other  soldiers  then  laid  down 
their  arms,  the  old  man  was  rescued,  and 
the  rebellion  was  commenced.* 

And  now  we  must  turn  to  Sir  James 
Turner's  memoirs  of  himself;  for,  strange 
to  say,  this  extraordinary  man  was  re- 

*Wodrow,  vol.  ii.  p.  17. 

22O 


THE  BEGINNING 

markably  fond  of  literary  composition, 
and  wrote,  besides  the  amusing  account  of 
his  own  adventures  just  mentioned,  a  large 
number  of  essays  and  short  biographies, 
and  a  work  on  war,  entitled  "Pallas  Ar- 
mata"  The  following  are  some  of  the 
shorter  pieces:  "Magick,"  "Friendship," 
"Imprisonment,"  "Anger,"  "Revenge," 
"Duells,""  Cruelty,"  "A  Defence  of  some 
of  the  Ceremonies  of  the  English  Liturgie 
— to  wit — Bowing  at  the  Name  of  Jesus, 
The  frequent  repetition  of  the  Lord's  Pray- 
er and  Good  Lord  deliver  us,  Of  the  Doxo- 
logie,OfSurplesses,Rotchets,Canonnicall 
Coats,"  etc.  From  what  we  know  of  his 
character  we  should  expect  "Anger"  and 
"Cruelty"  to  be  very  full  and  instructive. 
But  what  earthly  right  he  had  to  meddle 
with  ecclesiastical  subjects  it  is  hard  to 
see. 

Upon  the  i2th  of  the  month  he  had 
received  some  information  concerning 
Gray's  proceedings,  but  as  it  was  excess- 
221 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

ively  indefinite  in  its  character,  he  paid 
no  attention  to  it.  On  the  evening  of  the 
1 4th,  Corporal  Deanes  was  brought  into 
Dumfries,  who  affirmed  stoutly  that  he 
had  been  shot  while  refusing  to  sign  the 
Covenant — a  story  rendered  singularly 
unlikely  by  the  after  conduct  of  the  rebels. 
Sir  James  instantly  despatched  orders  to 
the  cessed  soldiers  either  to  cometoDum- 
fries  or  meet  him  on  the  way  to  Dairy, 
and  commanded  the  thirteen  or  fourteen 
men  in  the  town  with  him  to  come  at 
nine  next  morning  to  his  lodging  for  sup- 
plies. 

On  the  morning  of  Thursday  the  rebels 
arrived  at  Dumfries  with  50  (horse  and 
150  foot.  Nielsen  of  Corsack,  and  Gray, 
who  commanded,  with  a  considerable 
troop,  entered  the  town,  and  surrounded 
Sir  James  Turner's  lodging.  Though  it 
was  between  eight  and  nine  o'clock,  that 
worthy,  being  unwell,  was  still  in  bed,  but 
rose  at  once  and  went  to  the  window. 

222 


THE  BEGINNING 

Nielson  and  some  others  cried,  "You  may 
have  fair  quarter." 

"I  need  no  quarter,"  replied  Sir  James; 
"nor  can  I  be  a  prisoner,  seeing  there  is 
no  war  declared."  On  being  told,  however, 
that  he  must  either  be  a  prisoner  or  die, 
he  came  down,  and  went  into  the  street 
in  his  night-shirt.  Here  Grayshowed  him- 
self very  desirous  of  killing  him,  but  he 
was  overruled  by  Corsack.  However,  he 
was  taken  away  a  prisoner,  Captain  Gray 
mounting  him  on  his  own  horse,  though, 
as  Turner  naively  remarks,  "there  was 
good  reason  for  it,  for  he  mounted  himself 
on  a  farre  better  one  of  mine."  A  large 
coffer  containing  his  clothes  and  money, 
together  with  all  his  papers,  were  taken 
away  by  the  rebels.  They  robbed  Master 
Chalmers,  the  Episcopalian  minister  of 
Dumfries,  of  his  horse,  drank  the  King's 
health  at  the  market  cross,  and  then  left 
Dumfries.* 

*  Sir  J.  Turner's  Memoirs,  pp.  148-50. 


Ill     THE  MARCH  OF  THE  REBELS 


"Stay,  passenger,  take  notice  what  thou  reads, 
At  Edinburgh  lie  our  bodies,  here  our  heads; 
Our  right  hand  stood  at  Lanark,  these  we  want, 
Because  with  them  we  signed  the  Covenant." 
Epitaph  on  a  Tombstone  at  Hamilton* 


*  A  Cloud  of  Witnesses,  p.  376. 


Ill    THE  MARCH  OF  THE  REBELS 

ON  FRIDAY  THE  i6TH, 
BailielrvineofDumfriescame 
to  the  Council  at  Edinburgh, 
and  gave  information  concer- 
ning this  "  horrid  rebellion.  "In  the  absence 
of  Rothes,  Sharpe  presided — much  to  the 
wrathofsomemembersjandasheimagined 
his  own  safety  endangered,  his  measures 
were  most  energetic.  Dalzell  was  ordered 
away  to  the  West,  the  guards  round  the  city 
were  doubled,  officers  and  soldiers  were 
forced  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance,  and 
all  lodgers  were  commanded  to  give  in 
their  names.  Sharpe,  surrounded  with  all 
these  guards  and  precautions,  trembled — 
trembled  as  he  trembled  when  the  aveng- 
ers of  blood  drew  him  from  his  chariot 
on  Magus  Muir, — for  he  knew  how  he  had 
sold  his  trust,  how  he  had  betrayed  his 
charge,  and  he  felt  that  against  him  must 
their  chiefest  hatred  be  directed,  against 
him  their  direst  thunderbolts  be  forged. 
But  even  in  his  fear  the  apostate  Presbyt- 
227 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

erian  was  unrelenting,  unpityingly  harsh ; 
he  published  in  his  manifesto  no  promise 
of  pardon,  no  inducement  to  submission. 
Hesaid, "  If  you  submit  not  you  must  die," 
but  never  added,  "  If  you  submit  you  may 
live!'* 

Meantime  the  insurgents  proceeded  on 
their  way.  At  Carsphairn  they  were  de- 
serted by  Captain  Gray,  who,  doubtless 
in  a  fit  of  oblivion,  neglected  to  leave  be- 
hind him  the  coffer  containing  Sir  James's 
money.  Whohe was  is  a  mystery,  unsolved 
by  any  historian;  his  papers  were  evid- 
ently forgeries — that,  and  his  final  flight, 
appears  to  indicate  that  he  was  an  agent 
of  the  Royalists,  for  either  the  King  or 
theDukeof  Yorkwas  heard  to  say,"That, 
if  he  might  have  his  wish,  he  would  have 
them  all  turn  rebels  and  go  to  arms."t 

Upon  the  i8th  day  of  the  month  they 
left  Carsphairn  and  marched  onwards. 

*  Wodrow,  pp.  19,  20. 
t  A  Hind  Let  Loose,  p.  123. 

228 


MARCH  OF  THE   REBELS 

Turner  was  always  lodged  by  his  capt- 
ors at  a  good  inn,  frequently  at  the  best 
of  which  their  halting-place  could  boast. 
Here  many  visits  were  paid  to  him  by  the 
ministers  and  officers  of  the  insurgent 
force.  In  his  description  of  these  inter- 
views he  displays  a  vein  of  satiric  severity, 
admitting  any  kindness  that  was  done  to 
him  with  some  qualify  ing  souvenirof  form- 
er harshness,  and  gloating  over  any  injury, 
mistake,  or  folly,  which  it  was  his  chance 
to  suffer  or  to  hear.  He  appears,  notwith- 
standing all  this,  to  have  been  on  pretty 
good  terms  with  his  cruel  "phanaticks,"as 
the  following  extract  sufficiently  proves: 
''Most  of  the  foot  were  lodged  about 
the  church  or  churchyard,  and  order  given 
to  ring  bells  next  morning  for  a  sermon  to 
be  preached  by  Mr  Welch.  Maxwell  of 
Morith,  and  Major  M'Cullough  invited 
me  to  heare  "that  phanatick  sermon"  (for 
soe  they  merrilie  called  it).  They  said  that 
preaching  might  prove  an  effectual meane 
229 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

to  turne  me,  which  they  heartilie  wished.  I 
answered  to  them  that  I  was  under  guards, 
and  that  if  they  intended  to  heare  that  ser- 
mon, it  was  probable  I  might  likewise,  for 
it  was  not  like  my  guards  wold  goe  to 
church  and  leave  me  alone  at  my  lodgeings. 
Bot  to  what  they  said  of  my  conversion,  I 
said  it  wold  be  hard  to  turne  a  Turner.  Bot 
because  I  foundethem  in  a  merrie  humour, 
I  said,  if  I  did  notcome  to  heare  Mr  Welch 
preach,  then  they  might  fine  me  in  fortie 
shillings  Scots,  which  was  double  the  su- 
ome  of  what  I  had  exacted  from  the  phan- 
atics."* 

This  tookplace  at  Ochiltree,  on  the  2  2  nd 
day  of  the  month.  The  following  is  re- 
counted by  this  personage  with  malicious 
glee,  and  certainly,  if  authentic,  it  is  a  sad 
proof  of  how  chaff  is  mixed  with  wheat, 
and  how  ignorant, almost  impious,  persons 
were  engaged  in  this  movement;  never- 
theless we  give  it,  for  we  wish  to  present 

*  Turner,  p.  163. 

230 


MARCH  OF  THE  REBELS 

with  impartiality  all  the  alleged  facts  to 
the  reader : — 

"Towards  the  evening  Mr  Robinsone 
and  Mr  Crukshank  gaue  me  a  visite;  I 
called  for  some  ale  purposelie  to  heare  one 
of  them  blesse  it.  It  fell  Mr  Robinsone  to 
seeke  the  blessing,  who  said  one  of  the 
most  bombastick  graces  that  ever  I  heard 
in  my  life.  He  summoned  God  Allmightie 
very  imperiouslie  to  be  their  secondarie 
(for  that  was  his  language).  'And  if,'  said 
he,  'thou  wilt  not  be  our  Secondarie,  we 
will  not  fight  for  thee  at  all,  for  it  is  not 
our  cause  bot  thy  cause;  and  if  thou  wilt 
not  fight  for  our  cause  and  thy  oune  cause, 
then  we  are  not  obliged  to  fight  for  it. 
They  say,'  said  he,  'that  Dukes,  Earles, 
and  Lords  are  coming  with  the  King's 
General  against  us,  bot  they  shall  be  noth- 
ing bot  a  threshing  to  us."  This  grace 
did  more  fullie  satisfie  me  of  the  folly  and 
injustice  of  their  cause,  then  the  ale  did 
quench  my  thirst."* 
2  ?  i  *  Turner,  p.  198. 


THE      HILLS     OF     HOME 

Frequently  the  rebels  made  a  halt  near 
some  roadside  alehouse,  or  in  some  con- 
venient park,  where  Colonel  Wallace,  who 
had  now  taken  the  command,  would  re- 
view the  horse  and  foot,  during  which 
time  Turner  was  sent  either  into  the  ale- 
house or  round  the  shoulder  of  the  hill,  to 
prevent  him  from  seeing  the  disorders 
which  were  likely  to  arise.  He  was,  at  last, 
on  the  25th  day  of  the  month,  between 
Douglas  and  Lanark,  permitted  to  behold 
their  evolutions.  "I  found  their  horse  did 
consistof  four  hundreth  andfortie,and  the 
foot  of  five  hundreth  and  upwards.  .  .  . 
The  horsemen  were  armed  for  most  part 
with  suord  and  pistoll,  some  onlie  with 
suord.  The  foot  with  musket,  pike,  sith 
(scythe),  forke,  and  suord;  and  some  with 
suords  great  and  long."  He  admired  much 
the  proficiency  of  their  cavalry,  and  mar- 
velled how  they  had  attained  to  it  in  so 
short  a  time.* 

*  Turner,  p.  167. 

232 


MARCH  OF  THE  REBELS 

At  Douglas,  which  they  had  just  left  on 
the  morning  of  thisgreat  wapinshaw,they 
were  charged — awful  picture  of  depravity! 
— with  the  theft  of  a  silver  spoon  and  a 
nightgown.  Could  it  be  expected  that  while 
the  whole  country  swarmed  with  robbers 
of  every  description,  such  a  rare  opport- 
unity for  plunder  should  be  lost  by  rogues, 
that  among  a  thousand  men,  even  though 
fighting  for  religion,  there  should  not  be 
one  Achan  in  the  camp?  At  Lanark  a 
declaration  was  drawn  up  and  signed  by 
the  chief  rebels.  In  it  occurs  the  follow- 
ing: 

"The  just  sense  whereof" — the  suffer- 
ings of  the  country — "made  us  choose, 
rather  to  betake  ourselves  to  the  fields  for 
self-defence,  than  to  stay  at  home,  bur- 
dened daily  with  the  calamities  of  others, 
and  tortured  with  the  fears  of  our  own 
approaching  misery."* 

The  whole  body,  too,  swore  the  Coven- 

*  Wodrow,  p.  29. 
233 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

ant,  to  which  ceremony  the  epitaph  at  the 
head  of  this  chapter  seems  to  refer. 

A  report  that  Dalzell  was  approaching 
drove  them  from  Lanark  to  Bathgate, 
where,  on  the  eveningof  Monday  the  26th, 
the  wearied  army  stopped.  But  at  twelve 
o'clock  the  cry,  which  served  them  for  a 
trumpet,  of  "Horse!  horse!"  and  "Mount 
the  prisoner!"  resounded  through  the 
night-shrouded  town,  and  called  the  peas- 
ants from  their  well-earned  rest  to  toil  on- 
wards in  their  march.  The  wind  howled 
fiercely  over  the  moorland;  a  close,  thick, 
wettingrain  descended.  Chilled  to  the  bone, 
worn  out  with  long  fatigue,  sinking  to  the 
knees  in  mire,  onward  they  marched  to  de- 
struction. One  by  one  the  weary  peasants 
fell  off  from  their  ranks  to  sleep,  and  die 
in  the  rain-soaked  moor,  or  to  seek  some 
house  by  the  wayside  wherein  to  hide  till 
daybreak.  One  by  one  at  first,  then  in 
gradually  increasing  numbers,  at  every 
shelter  that  was  seen,  whole  troops  left  the 

234 


MARCH  OF  THE   REBELS 

waning  squadrons,  and  rushed  to  hide 
themselves  from  the  ferocity  of  the  temp- 
est. To  right  and  left  nought  could  be  de- 
scried but  the  broad  expanse  of  the  moor, 
and  the  figures  of  their  fellow-rebels,  seen 
dimly  through  the  murky  night,  plodd- 
ing onwards  through  the  sinking  moss. 
Those  who  kept  together — a  miserable 
few — often  halted  to  rest  themselves,  and 
to  allow  their  lagging  comrades  to  over- 
take them.  Then  onward  they  went  again, 
still  hoping  for  assistance,  reinforcement, 
and  supplies;  onward  again,  through  the 
wind,  and  the  rain,  and  the  darkness — 
onward  to  their  defeat  at  Pentland,  and 
their  scaffold  at  Edinburgh.  It  was  calcu- 
lated that  they  lost  one  half  of  their  army 
on  that  disastrous  night-march. 

Next  night  they  reached  the  village  of 
Colinton,  four  miles  from  Edinburgh, 

where  they  halted  for  the  last  time.* 

*  Turner,  Wodrow,  and  Church  History  by  James 
Kirkton,  an  outed  minister  of  the  period. 

235 


IV  RULLION  GREEN 


"They  cut  his  hands  ere  he  was  dead, 
And  after  that  struck  off  his  head. 
His  blood  under  the  altar  cries 
For  vengeance  on  Christ's  enemies." 

Epitaph  on  Tomb  at  Longer oss  of  Clermont* 


*  Cloud  of  Witnesses,  p.  389;  Edin.  1765. 


IV  RULLION  GREEN 

LATE  ON  THE  FOURTH 
night  of  November,   exactly 
twenty-four  days  before  Rull- 
ion  Green ,  Richard  and  George 
Chaplain,  merchants  in  Haddington,  be- 
held four  men,  clad  like  West-country 
Whigamores,  standing  round  some  object 
on  the  ground.  It  was  at  the  two-mile  cross, 
andwithin  that  distance  from  their  homes. 
At  last,  to  their  horror,  they  discovered 
that  the  recumbent  figure  was  a  livid 
corpse,  swathed  in  a  blood-stained  wind- 
ing-sheet.* Many  thought  that  this  appari- 
tion was  a  portent  of  the  deaths  connected 
with  the  Pentland  Rising. 

On  themorningof  Wednesday, the28th 
of  November  1 666,  they  left  Colinton  and 
marched  to  Rullion  Green.  There  they 
arrived  about  sunset.  The  position  was 
a  strong  one.  On  the  summit  of  a  bare, 
heathery  spur  of  the  Pentlands  are  two 
hillocks,  and  between  them  lies  a  narrow 

*Kirkton,  p.  244. 
239 


THE     HILLS     OF      HOME 

band  of  flat  marshy  ground.  On  the  high- 
est of  the  two  mounds — that  nearest  the 
Pentlands,andon  the  left  handof  themain- 
body — was  the  greater  part  of  the  cavalry, 
under  Major  Learmont;  on  the  other  Bar- 
skob  and  the  Galloway  gentlemen;  and  in 
the  centre  Colonel  Wallace  and  the  weak, 
half-armed  infantry.  Their  position  was 
further  strengthened  by  the  depth  of  the 
valley  below,  and  the  deep  chasm-like 
course  of  the  Rullion  Burn. 

The  sun,  going  down  behind  the  Pent- 
lands,  cast  golden  lights  and  blue  shadows 
on  their  snow-clad  summits,  slanted  ob- 
liquely into  the  rich  plain  before  them, 
bathing  with  rosy  splendour  the  leafless, 
snow-sprinkled  trees,  and  fading  gradu- 
ally into  shadow  in  the  distance.  To  the 
south,  too,  they  beheld  a  deep-shaded 
amphitheatre  of  heather  and  bracken;  the 
course  of  the  Esk,  near  Penicuik,  winding 
about  at  the  foot  of  its  gorge;  the  broad, 
brown  expanse  of  Maw  Moss;  and,  fading 

240 


RULLION  GREEN 

into  blue  indistinctness  in  the  south,  the 
wild  heath -clad  Peeblesshire  hills.  In 
sooth,  that  scene  was  fair,  and  many  a 
yearning  glance  was  cast  over  that  peace- 
ful evening  scene  from  the  spot  where  the 
rebels  awaited  their  defeat;  and  when  the 
fight  was  over,  many  a  noble  fellow  lifted 
his  head  from  the  blood-stained  heather 
to  strive  with  darkening  eyeballs  to  behold 
that  landscape,  over  which,  as  over  his  life 
and  his  cause,  the  shadows  of  night  and  of 
gloom  were  falling  and  thickening. 

It  was  while  waiting  on  this  spot  that 
the  fear  -  inspiring  cry  was  raised:  "The 
enemy!  Here  come  the  enemy!" 

Unwilling  to  believe  their  own  doom — 
for  our  insurgents  still  hoped  for  success 
in  some  negotiations  for  peace  which  had 
been  carried  on  at  Colinton — they  called 
out,  "They  are  some  other  of  our  own." 

"They  are  too  blacke"  (i.e.  numerous), 
"fie!  fie!  for  ground  to  draw  up  on,"  cried 
Wallace,  fully  realising  the  want  of  space 
241  Q 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

for  his  men,  and  proving  that  it  was  not 
till  after  this  time  that  his  forces  were 
finally  arranged."* 

First  of  all  the  battle  was  commenced 
by  fifty  Royalist  horse  sent  obliquely 
across  the  hill  to  attack  the  left  wing  of  the 
rebels.  An  equal  number  of  Learmont's 
men  met  them,  and,  after  a  struggle,  drove 
them  back.  The  course  of  the  Rullion  Burn 
prevented  almost  all  pursuit,  and  Wallace, 
on  perceiving  it,  dispatched  a  body  of  foot 
to  occupy  both  the  burn  and  some  ruined 
sheep-walls  on  the  farther  side. 

Dalzell  changed  his  position,  and  drew 
up  his  army  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  on  the 
top  of  which  were  his  foes.  He  then  dis- 
patched a  mingled  body  of  infantry  and 
cavalry  to  attack  Wallace's  outpost,  but 
they  also  were  driven  back.  A  third  charge 
produced  a  still  more  disastrous  effect,  for 
Dalzell  had  to  check  the  pursuit  of  his  men 
by  a  reinforcement. 

*Kirkton. 

242 


RULLION  GREEN 

These  repeated  checks  bred  a  panic  in 
the  Lieutenant -General's  ranks,  for  sev- 
eral of  his  men  flung  down  their  arms. 
Urged  by  such  fatal  symptoms,  and  by  the 
approaching  night,  he  deployed  his  men, 
and  closed  in  overwhelming  numbers  on 
the  centre  and  right  flank  of  the  insurgent 
army.  In  the  increasing  twilight  the  burn- 
ing matches  of  the  firelocks,  shimmering 
on  barrel,  halbert,  and  cuirass,  lent  to  the 
approaching  army  a  picturesque  effect, 
like  a  huge,  many-armed  giant  breathing 
flame  into  the  darkness. 

Placed  on  an  overhanging  hill,  Welch 
and  Semple  cried  aloud, "  The  God  of  Jac- 
ob! The  God  of  Jacob!"  and  prayed  with 
uplifted  hands  for  victory.* 

But  still  the  Royalist  troops  closed  in. 

Captain  John  Paton  was  observed  by 
Dalzell,  who  determined  to  capture  him 
with  his  own  hands.  Accordingly  he  charg- 
ed forward,  presenting  his  pistols.  Paton 

*  Turner. 
243 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

fired,  but  the  balls  hopped  off  Dalzell's 
buff  coat  and  fell  into  his  boot.  With  the 
superstition  peculiar  to  his  age,  the  Non- 
conformist concluded  that  his  adversary 
was  rendered  bullet-proof  by  enchant- 
ment, and,  pulling  some  small  silver  coins 
from  his  pocket,  charged  his  pistol  there- 
with. Dalzell,  seeing  this,  and  supposing, 
it  is  likely,  that  Paton  wasputtingin larger 
balls,  hid  behind  his  servant,  who  was 
killed.* 

Meantimetheoutposts  were  forced, and 
the  army  of  Wallace  was  enveloped  in  the 
embrace  of  a  hideous  boa-constrictor — 
tightening,  closing,  crushing  every  sem- 
blance of  life  from  the  victim  enclosed  in 
his  toils.  The  flanking  parties  of  horse 
were  forced  in  upon  the  centre,  and  though 
as  even  Turner  grants,  they  fought  with 
desperation,  a  general  flight  was  the  re- 
sult. 

But  when  they  fell  there  was  none  to 

*  Kirkton. 

244 


RULLION  GREEN 

sing  their  coronach  or  wail  the  death-wail 
over  them.  Those  who  sacrificed  them- 
selves for  the  peace,  the  liberty,  and  the 
religion  of  their  fellow-countrymen,  lay 
bleaching  in  the  field  of  death  for  long,  and 
when  at  last  they  were  buried  by  charity, 
the  peasants  dug  up  their  bodies,  dese- 
crated their  graves,  and  cast  them  once 
more  upon  the  open  heath  for  the  sorry 
value  of  their  winding-sheets! 


A  RECORD  OF  BLOOD 


RULLION  GREEN 

INSCRIPTION  ON  STONE  AT  RULLION  GREEN: 

Here 

and  near  to 
this  Place  lyes  the 

Reuerend  Mr  John  Crookshanks  and  Mr 
Andrew  McCormock  Ministers  of  the  Gos- 
pel, and  about  Fifty  other  True  Covenanted 
Presbyterians  who  were  killed  in  this  Place 
in  their  own  Innocent  Self  Defence  and 
Defence  of  the  Covenanted  Work  of  Re- 
formation by  Thomas  Dalzeel  of  Bins  upon 
the  28  of  November  1666.  Rev.  12.  u. 
Erected  Sept.  28,  1738. 

Back  of  Stone: 

A  Cloud  of  Witnesses  ly  here, 
Who  for  Christ's  Interest  did  appear, 
For  to  restore  true  Liberty, 
O'erturned  then  by  tyrany. 
And  by  proud  Prelats  who  did  Rage 
Against  the  Lord's  own  heritage. 
They  sacrificed  were  for  the  laws 
Of  Christ  their  king,  his  noble  cause. 
These  heroes  fought  with  great  renown 
By  falling  got  the  Martyr's  crown.* 


*  Kirkton. 


Halt,  passenger;  take  heed  what  thou  dost  see, 
This  tomb  doth  show  for  what  some  men  did  die." 

Monumenf,  Greyfriars'  Churchyard,  Edinburgh, 
1661-1668.* 


*Theater  of  Mortality,  p.  10.  Edin.  1713. 


V  A  RECORD  OF  BLOOD 

MASTER  ANDREW 
Murray,  an  outed  minister, 
residing  in  the  Potterrow, 
on  the  morning  after  the 
defeat,  heard  the  sounds  of  cheering  and 
the  march  of  many  feet  beneathhis  window. 
He  gazed  out.  With  colours  flying,and  with 
musicsounding,Dalzell,victorious,entered 
Edinburgh.  But  his  banners  were  dyed  in 
blood,and  a  band  of  prisoners  were  marched 
within  his  ranks.  The  old  man  knew  it  all. 
That  martial  and  triumphant  strain  was 
the  death-knell  of  his  friends  and  of  their 
cause,  the  rust-hued  spots  upon  the  flags 
were  the  tokens  of  their  courage  and  their 
death,  and  the  prisoners  were  the  miser- 
able remnant  spared  from  death  in  battle 
to  die  upon  the  scaffold.  Poor  old  man!  he 
had  outlived  all  joy.  Had  he  lived  longer 
he  would  have  seen  increasing  torment 
and  increasing  woe;  he  would  have  seen 
the  clouds,  then  but  gathering  in  mist,  cast 
a  more  than  midnight  darkness  over  his 
251 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

native  hills,  and  have  fallen  a  victim  to 
those  bloody  persecutions  which,  later, 
sent  their  red  memorials  to  the  sea  by 
many  a  burn.  By  a  merciful  Providence  all 
this  was  spared  to  him — he  fell  beneath 
the  first  blow;  and  ere  four  days  had  passed 
since  Rullion  Green,  the  aged  minister  of 
God  was  gathered  to  his  fathers.* 

When  Sharpefirst  heard  of  therebellion, 
he  applied  to  Sir  Alexander  Ramsay,  the 
Provost,  for  soldiers  to  guard  his  house. 
Disliking  their  occupation,  the  soldiers 
gave  him  an  ugly  time  of  it.  All  the  night 
through  they  kept  up  a  continuous  series 
of  "alarms  and  incursions,"  "cries  of 
'Stand!'  'Give  fire!'"  etc.,  which  forced 
the  prelate  to  flee  to  the  Castle  in  the 
morning,  hoping  there  to  find  the  rest 
which  was  denied  him  at  home.f  Now, 
however,  when  all  danger  to  himself  was 
past,  Sharpe  came  out  in  his  true  colours, 
and  scantwasthe  justicelikelyto  be  shown 

*  Kirkton,  p.  247.  t  Ibid.  p.  254. 

252 


A     RECORD     OF     BLOOD 

to  the  foes  of  Scottish  Episcopacy  when 
the  Primate  was  by.  The  prisoners  were 
lodged  in  Haddo'sHole,apartofSt  Giles' 
Cathedral,  where,  by  the  kindness  of  Bis- 
hop Wishart,  to  his  credit  be  it  spoken 
they  were  amply  supplied  with  food.* 

Some  people  urged,  in  the  Council,  that 
the  promise  of  quarter  which  had  been 
given  on  the  field  of  battle  should  protect 
the  lives  of  the  miserable  men.  Sir  John 
Gilmoure,  the  greatest  lawyer,  gave  no 
opinion — certainly  a  suggestive  circum- 
stance— but  Lord  Lee  declared  that  this 
would  not  interfere  with  their  legal  trial; 
"so  to  bloody  executions  they  went."t  To 
the  number  of  thirtythey  were  condemned 
and  executed;  while  two  of  them,  Hugh 
M'Kail,  a  young  minister,  and  Nielson  of 
Corsack,  were  tortured  with  the  boots. 

The  goods  of  those  who  perished  were 
confiscated,  and  their  bodies  were  dis- 
membered and  distributed  to  different 

*  Kirkton,  p.  247.  t  Ibid.  pp.  247,  248. 

253 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

parts  of  the  country;  "the  heads  of  Major 
M'Culloch  and  the  two  Gordons,  it  was 
resolved," says  Kirkton,  "should  be  pitch- 
ed on  the  gate  of  Kirkcudbright;  the  two 
Hamiltons  and  Strong's  head  should  be 
affixed  at  Hamilton,  and  Captain  Arnot's 
sett  on  the  Watter  Gate  at  Edinburgh. 
The  armes  of  all  the  ten,  because  they 
hade  with  uplifted  hands  renewed  the  Cov- 
enant at  Lanark,  were  sent  to  thepeopleof 
that  town  to  expiate  that  crime, by  placing 
these  arms  on  the  top  of  the  prison."*  A- 
mong* these  was  John  Neilson,  the  Laird 
of  Corsack,  who  saved  Turner's  life  at 
Dumfries;  in  return  for  which  service  Sir 
James  attempted,  though  without  success, 
to  get  the  poor  man  reprieved.  One  of  the 
condemned  died  of  his  wounds  between 
the  day  of  condemnation  and  the  day  of 
execution.  "None  of  them,"  says  Kirkton, 
"would  save  their  life  by  taking  the  declar- 
ation &  renouncing  the  Covenant,  though 

*  Kirkton,  p.  248. 

254 


A     RECORD     OF     BLOOD 

it  was  offered  to  them. . . .  But  never  men 
died  in  Scotland  so  much  lamented  by  the 
people,  not  only  spectators,  but  those  in 
the  country.  When  Knockbreck  and  his 
brother  were  turnedover,  they  clasped  each 
other  in  their  arms,  and  so  endured  the 
pangs  of  death.  When  Humphrey  Colqu- 
houn  died,  he  spoke  not  like  ane  ordinary 
citizen,  but  like  a  heavenly  minister,  relat- 
inghis  comfortable  Christian  experiences, 
and  called  for  his  Bible,  and  laid  it  on  his 
wounded  arm,  and  read  John  iii.  8,  and 
spoke  upon  it  to  the  admiration  of  all.  But 
most  of  all,  when  Mr  M'Kail  died,  there 
was  such  lamentation  as  was  never  known 
in  Scotland  before;  not  one  dry  cheek  upon 
all  the  street,  or  in  all  the  numberless  wind- 
ows in  the  mercate  place."* 

The  following  passage  from  this  speech 
speaks  for  itself  and  its  author: 

"Hereafter  I  will  not  talkwith  flesh  and 
blood,  nor  think  on  the  world's  consol- 

*  Kirkton,  p.  249. 
255 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

ations.  Farewell  to  all  my  friends,  whose 
company  hath  been  refreshful  to  me  in  my 
pilgrimage.  I  have  done  with  the  light  of 
the  sun  and  the  moon;  welcome  eternal 
light,  eternal  life,  everlasting  love,  ever- 
lasting praise,  everlasting  glory.  Praise  to 
Him  that  sits  upon  the  throne,  and  to  the 
Lamb  for  ever!  Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul, 
that  hath  pardoned  all  my  iniquities  in  the 
blood  of  His  Son,  and  healed  all  my  dis- 
eases. Bless  Him,  O  all  ye  His  angels  that 
excel  in  strength,  ye  ministers  of  His  that 
do  His  pleasure.  Bless  the  Lord,  O  my 
soul!"* 

After  having  ascended  the  gallows  lad- 
der he  again  broke  forth  in  the  following 
words  of  touching  eloquence:  "And  now 
I  leave  off  to  speak  any  more  to  creatures, 
and  begin  my  intercourse  with  God,  which 
shall  never  be  broken  off.  Farewell  father 
and  mother,  friends  and  relations!  Fare- 
well the  world  and  all  delights!  Farewell 

*Naphtali,Tp.  205;  Glasgow,  1721. 

256 


A     RECORD     OF     BLOOD 

meat  and  drink!  Farewell  sun,  moon,  and 
stars! — Welcome  God  and  Father!  Wel- 
come sweet  Jesus  Christ,  the  Mediator  of 
the  new  covenant!  Welcome  blessed  Spir- 
it of  grace  and  God  of  all  consolation! 
Welcome  glory!  Welcome  eternal  life! 
Welcome  Death!"* 

At  Glasgow,  too,  where  some  were  ex- 
ecuted, they  caused  the  soldiers  to  beat  the 
drums  and  blow  the  trumpets  on  their 
closing  ears.  Hideous  refinement  of  re- 
venge! Even  the  last  words  which  drop 
from  the  lips  of  a  dying  man,  words  sure- 
ly the  most  sincere  and  the  most  unbiassed 
which  mortal  mouth  can  utter,  even  these 
were  looked  upon  as  poisoned  and  as  poi- 
sonous. "Drown  their  last  accents,"  was 
the  cry,  "lest  they  should  lead  the  crowd 
to  take  their  part,  or  at  the  least  to  mourn 
their  doom ! '  t  But,  after  all,  perhaps  it  was 
more  merciful  than  one  would  think — un- 
intentionally so,  of  course;  perhaps  the 

*  Wodrow,  p.  59.  t  Kirkton,  p.  246. 

257  R 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

storm  of  harsh  and  fiercely  jubilant  noises, 
the  clanging  of  trumpets,  the  rattling  of 
drums,  and  the  hootings  and  jeerings  of 
an  unfeeling  mob,  which  were  the  last 
they  heard  on  earth,  might,  when  the 
mortal  fight  was  over,  when  the  river  of 
death  was  passed,  add  tenfold  sweetness 
to  the  hymning  of  the  angels,  tenfold 
peacefulness  to  the  shores  which  they  had 
reached. 

Not  content  with  the  cruelty  of  these 
executions,  some  even  of  the  peasantry, 
though  these  were  confined  to  the  shire 
of  Mid-Lothian,  pursued,  captured,  plund- 
ered, and  murdered  the  miserable  fugit- 
ives who  fell  in  their  way.  One  strange 
story  have  we  of  these  times  of  blood  and 
persecution:  Kirkton  the  historian  and 
popular  tradition  tell  us  alike  of  a  flame 
which  often  would  arise  from  the  grave, 
in  a  moss  near  Carnwath,  of  some  of  those 
poor  rebels:  of  how  it  crept  along  the 
ground;  of  how  it  covered  the  house  of 

.258 


A     RECORD     OF     BLOOD 

their  murderer;  and  of  how  it  scared  him 
with  its  lurid  glare. 

Hear  Daniel  Defoe:* 

"If  the  poor  people  were  by  these  in- 
supportable violences  made  desperate, 
and  driven  to  all  the  extremities  of  a  wild 
despair,  who  can  justly  reflect  on  them 
when  they  read  in  the  word  of  God  'That 
oppression  makes  a  wise  man  mad'?  And 
therefore  were  there  no  other  original  of 
the  insurrection  known  by  the  name  of  the 
Rising  of  Pentland,  it  was  nothing  but 
what  the  intolerable  oppressions  of  those 
times  might  have  justified  to  all  the  world, 
nature  having  dictated  to  all  people  a  right 
of  defence  when  illegally  and  arbitrarily 
attacked  in  a  manner  not  justifiable  either 
by  laws  of  nature,  the  laws  of  God,  or  the 
laws  of  the  country." 

Bear  this  remonstrance  of  Defoe's  in 
mind,  and  though  it  is  the  fashion  of  the 
day  to  jeer  and  to  mock,  to  execrate  and 

*  Defoe's  History  of  the  Church. 
259 


THE     HILLS     OF     HOME 

to  contemn,  the  noble  band  of  Covenant- 
ers— though  the  bitter  laugh  at  their  old- 
world  religious  views,  the  curl  of  the  lip 
at  their  merits,  and  the  chilling  silence  on 
their  bravery  and  their  determination,  are 
but  too  rife  through  all  society — be  char  it- 
able  to  what  was  evil  and  honest  to  what 
was  good  about  the  Pentland  insurgents, 
who  fought  for  life  and  liberty,  for  country 
and  religion,  on  the  28th  of  November 
1666,  now  just  two  hundred  years  ago. 

EDINBURGH,  2%th  Nov.  1866. 


"From  Covenanters  with  uplifted  hands, 
From  Remonstrators  with  associate  bands, 

Good  Lord,  deliver  us!" 
Royalist  Rhyme,  KIRKTON,  p.  127. 


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